Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

ROYAL HOLLOWAY COLLEGE BILL

Read the Third time and passed.

AUSTRALIAN AGRICULTURAL COMPANY BILL

SAINT PAUL, COVENT GARDEN BILL

WHITEHAVEN HARBOUR BILL

As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

LETCHVVORTH GARDEN CITY CORPORATION BILL (By Order)

BRITISH TRANSPORT COMMISSION BILL (By Order)

Second Reading deferred till Tuesday, 20th March, at Seven o'clock.

CITY OF LONDON (VARIOUS POWERS) BILL (By Order)

Second Reading deferred till Monday next.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF AVIATION

Research and Development Contracts

Mr. Grey: asked the Minister of Aviation what was the value of research and development contracts placed by him during the past 12 months, or any ascertainable period; and how many of these were placed with firms in the north region.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Aviation (Mr. C M. Wood-house): The value of research and development contracts placed by the Ministry of Aviation during 1961 was approximately £125 million; my Department's records are not kept so as to show the number of contracts placed in particular regions.

Mr. Grey: Why was so little of the work placed with the North-East firms, especially when they are so efficient and could, perhaps, do the job more cheaply? Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this type of contract could overcome the unemployment position in the North-East much better than anything else?

Mr. Woodhouse: The hon. Member's Question referred to the Northern Region. I am aware that the electronics industry in that region is mainly concentrated in the north-eastern part of it, but it is only a small proportion of the electronics industry in the country.


Since our practice is to allocate contracts by judgment of technical competence and financial consideration rather than by geographical location, it is inevitable that only a small proportion of the contracts will go there.

Aircraft (Exports)

Mr. Rankin: asked the Minister of Aviation what was the total number of aircraft, and of what kind, booked for export in 1961; and how these figures compare with 1960 and 1959, respectively.

Mr. Woodhouse: As the Answer contains a number of figures, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Rankin: While I am awaiting that information, can the hon. Gentleman read my mind a little: are our exports going up or are they falling?

Mr. Woodhouse: I am glad to say that in 1961 they were up by value on 1960, and civil aircraft were up by both numbers and by value.

Following is the Answer:


—
Combat
Non-Combat
Civil
Used
Value







£ million


1959…
173
77
89
91
154·7


1960…
71
48
55
62
140·4


1961…
21
40
59
41
146·4

Factories, Stevenage and Luton

Mr. Lee: asked the Minister of Aviation what Government contracts he proposes to allot to the factories of the English Electric Corporation at Stevenage and Luton, in order to avoid redundancy there.

The Minister of Aviation (Mr. Peter Thorneycroft): I do not allot work to particular factories. I am, however, discussing future possibilities with the British Aircraft Corporation to assist it in its forward planning.

Mr. Lee: Is the Minister aware that the factory at Stevenage is a Government factory, and it would appear that the conditions under which the I.D.C. was

granted was for work for aircraft purposes only? A large percentage of the engineering personnel at Stevenage is employed by one or two aircraft factories, and if the development staff are to become redundant things will look pretty sickly for the manual staffs in a few months' time. Will the right hon. Gentleman look at the matter again from that angle?

Mr. Thorneycroft: It cannot be part of Government policy to preserve an exact level of design staff, but I am aware of the problems there and I am discussing them with the British Aircraft Corporation.

Helicopter Station, London

Mr. Lipton: asked the Minister of Aviation what was the outcome of the deputation to him on 2nd March from London local authorities about heliport sites.

Mr. Thorneycroft: The hon. Member may have seen the agreed communiqué issued after the meeting, which I will, with permission, circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Lipton: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that within half a mile or 880 yards of this site live 14,000 to 15,000 residents of Lambeth, Battersea, Chelsea and Westminster, and that the noise and congestion will be even worse if Covent Garden Market moves to this site, unless he will guarantee silent helicopters?

Mr. Thorneycroft: I do not answer for Covent Garden Market. I answer only for helicopters, and I see no prospect of a silent helicopter. If there is to be a heliport in London and the local authorities have no objection in principle to it, inevitably some people are going to live somewhere near the heliport.

Mr. Rankin: Is it not the case that Westlands already has a helicopter station in Battersea, and can the right hon. Gentleman say how many complaints there have been about it in Brixton?

Mr. Thorneycroft: I have not heard of a great number of complaints about the landing of helicopters in Battersea. I am well aware of the noise problem. I keep it very much in mind, and I hope


to proceed in full consultation with the local authorities concerned.

Following is the communiqué:

London County Council and Metropolitan Boroughs' Standing Joint Committee Deputation sees Minister of Aviation on Heliports.
A deputation representing the London County Council and Metropolitan Boroughs' Standing Joint Committee met the Minister of Aviation, Mr. Peter Thorneycroft, this morning to discuss their comments on the Report of the Committee on the Planning of Helicopter Stations in the London Area. It will be recalled that, out of the nine sites which they examined, the Helicopter Committee short-listed three possible ones, these being at Nine Elms, Cannon Street Station and St. Katharine Dock.
The deputation represented to the Minister that there was no objection in principle to the establishment in due course of a helicopter station in central London, provided that the noise caused would be kept down to tolerable levels. Unless this could be done the local authorities must strongly oppose the establishment of any helicopter station. The Minister explained that there was no suggestion of setting up a helicopter station for city-to-city travel in the near future, but it was unthinkable that London should be unable to provide such a terminal if such services developed generally in Europe.
The immediate problem was therefore to arrange to safeguard a suitable site by preventing any development incompatible with its use for helicopters. Before such a use was established there would be a full public enquiry when all the circumstances, as then existing, including the question of noise, would be fully ventilated and considered. The representatives of the local authorities emphasised the grave difficulties they would face if no more direct assurance against the effects of noise nuisance could be given.
The Minister indicated that he would now write to the local authorities to the effect that he would no longer wish to ask for the Cannon Street or St. Katharine Dock sites to be held for possible use as heliports as long as consideration be given to safeguarding the Nine Elms site for possible future use for a helicopter station.
It was agreed that the Minister, for his part, and the local authorities, for their part, would further consider the problem in the light of the discussion and consult again.
On the question of a monorail or other direct connection with Heathrow the Minister said that he did not regard this as an alternative to the Heliport but that any method of speeding up travel to Heathrow would obviously be valuable and the Government would co-operate with the planning authorities on the study of this as necessary.

Aircraft Industry

Mr. Cronin: asked the Minister of Aviation what improvements he intends to make in the present system of planning

national aviation objectives to enable the British aircraft industry to design, develop and produce on a substantially more long-term basis than at present.

Mr. Thorneycroft: All planning is on a long-term basis, and not least in the aircraft industry. Its principal objectives are to meet defence requirements and to sell aircraft, engines and equipment, particularly overseas. I am discussing with the industry ways in which planning methods, industrial as well as Governmental, might be improved.

Mr. Cronin: I am glad to hear that the Minister is giving this matter some attention. Is he not aware that the United States Government, through the Operation Horizon report, and the French Government, through the Commissariat des Plans, have given a lot of useful and long-term guidance to their aircraft industries? Would it not be helpful if the Government adopted the same policy?

Mr. Thorneycroft: Guidance is very useful, but orders are what they really want in the aircraft industry. It is not Project Horizon that really helps the American aircraft industry, but the fact that massive defence orders are put in the way of manufacturers. We had earlier than Project Horizon a policy which was set up by my predecessor rather on the same lines, and this is still the policy that we pursue.

Mr. Burden: Would my right hon. Friend not agree that the aircraft industry today is a very valuable earner of foreign currency, and that if we are to retain that position it must be on the basis that manufacturers of aircraft must be given every opportunity for long-term development?

Mr. Thorneycroft: Yes, Sir. I would agree that the aircraft industry is an extremely valuable asset, and it was with that thought in mind that the British Government devised the policy which they have and which has been fully explained on numerous occasions and are giving support to it.

Mr. Lee: Unlike a number of other industries, much of the cost of this industry falls on public funds, and is that not all the more reason for the


point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Mr. Cronin) about long-term policy being applied through Government sources rather than leaving it to the industry?

Mr. Thorneycroft: There is much to be said for long-term planning whether public or private money is involved.

Hawker P1127

Mr Cronin: asked the Minister of Aviation what support the Government are giving to the development and production of the Hawker P1127 vertical take-off and landing aircraft.

Mr. Thorneycroft: Money and a development programme shared with Germany and the United States.

Mr. Cronin: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that this is the biggest development in aviation since the invention of the jet engine, and is it not, therefore, necessary that there should be some intensive, urgent Government support for this project, particularly as this country possesses the only aircraft of this type which actually flies? Would it not be desirable to put a squadron of these aircraft into service as soon as possible in order to obtain operational experience?

Mr. Thorneycroft: I would agree with the hon. Gentleman that this is one of the most interesting and, perhaps, far-reaching developments in aviation research, and all those concerned in it are to be complimented. In addition to the two P1127 aircraft which have already flown and four experimental aircraft under construction, at least a further nine aircraft will be ordered. The whole approach is being done under arrangements which we are seeking to make with Germany and the United States of America, so we have been far from idle in this and there are good prospects for this particular form of development.

Sir A. V. Harvey: Is my right hon. Friend aware that for the sake of very small orders, which are welcome, in the United States and Germany, in two or three years' time they will finish up with the engineering "know-how" which has given Hawkers this present three-year lead?

Mr. Thorneycroft: Yes, Sir, but I think it would be a short-sighted view

not to seek to interest others in this particular type of development. The converse of what my hon. Friend has said—and I realise the force of it—is that if we choose to develop this on our own it might be that no one will take the slightest interest in it.

Avro 748 and Dart Herald Aircraft

Mr. Pavitt: asked the Minister of Aviation why the Avro 748 is preferred to the Handley Page Dart Herald as a replacement transport aircraft.

Mr. Goodhew: asked the Minister of Aviation if he will state the cost per aircraft to be paid for the Avro 748, the comparable tender price per aircraft of the Handley Page Dart Herald, military version, and the total extra expenditure involved in his recent decision to purchase the Avro 748 in lieu of the Dart Herald as a close support military transport aircraft for the Royal Air Force.

Mr. Pargiter: asked the Minister of Aviation why the Avro 748 is preferred to the Handley Page Dart Herald as a replacement transport aircraft.

Mr. Thorneycroft: Both these aircraft are first class and both are distinguished examples of British aircraft production techniques. There is in practice no decisive difference between them, either in suitability for the purpose required or in the financial obligations which they would represent. The actual price to be paid for the aircraft will be determined by fixed price negotiations between my Department and the Hawker Siddeley Group and the contract is naturally conditional upon satisfactory terms being agreed. It is not the practice to give details of the manufacturers' quotations in these cases, but the Government is satisfied that, having taken all the relevant factors into consideration, including all those concerned with cost, maintenance, operational performance and possibilities for future development, the choice of the Avro 748 in this particular rôle is the right one.

Mr. Pavitt: Is it not a fact that Handley Page is already jigged and tooled and able to get on with this job whereas Avro has not reached this stage and that this may possibly result in twelve months' delay? Is it not also the fact that only five Dart Heralds will


be required for every six Avros, and does not this mean that there will be a difference of between £3 million and £10 million in the cost to the taxpayer as a result of putting the order where it is at present?

Mr. Thorneycroft: No, Sir. The same number of either aircraft would be required.

Mr. Goodhew: How can my right hon. Friend expect the House to be able to judge the wisdom or otherwise of his decision if we are not given information about the cost of the aircraft? Why is he so coy about it? Could it be because the Avro 748 will cost approximately £100,000 per aircraft more than the Dart Herald and that the extra cost to the taxpayer of this doctrinaire decision will run not into hundreds of thousands but millions of pounds?

Mr. Thorneycroft: I am not in the least coy about the subject. I have not even yet begun to negotiate the price for this aircraft, and in any event even if I had it has never been the practice to disclose quotations.

Mr. Lee: Is the right hon. Gentleman saying that there is no difference either in carrying capacity or economically between the two aircraft, because it has been quite freely said that there is an advantage which the right hon. Gentleman is not taking up because of the failure to enter into shotgun marriages and things of that sort?

Mr. Thorneycroft: A lot of things are very freely said which are not necessarily true. These aircraft are not identical. There are differences between them, mostly marginal, some to the advantage of one and some to the other. Taking all the factors into consideration, I am absolutely satisfied that we have made the right choice.

Mr. Burden: If my right hon. Friend has not yet negotiated the price, how can he say that the Avro 748 is to be preferred?

Mr. Thorneycroft: Because the cost difference between these two aircraft is in any event marginal and I have to take into account all the factors, some of which I have enumerated.

Mr. Cronin: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware how horrified we all are in the House today about the word "marginal" used by himself when reference is made lightheartedly to millions of pounds in connection with his Department's expenditure? Is it not the case that the Avro 748 will cost nearly £100,000 more per aircraft, and and is it not a fact that if this transaction goes through it will cause a widespread drop in the morale of the aircraft industry when it realises that merit is not important and doctrinaire political considerations come first?

Mr. Thorneycroft: The hon. Gentleman may rest assured that it has nothing to do with doctrinaire considerations. This is a case in which all relevant considerations have to be taken into account, including the declared and, as I understand it, accepted policy of Her Majesty's Government towards the aircraft industry; and, on full consideration of these matters, the choice has been made. I cannot choose them both. Somebody is bound to be unhappy about the choice.

Hydraulic Systems (Flame-resistant Fluids)

Mr. Rankin: asked the Minister of Aviation what steps he is taking to ensure the use of flame-resistant hydraulic fluids in aircraft.

Mr. Woodhouse: No flame-resistant fluid so far produced is wholly satisfactory in existing hydraulic systems in aircraft. Research is in hand to develop new flame-resistant fluids and to develop methods of using them without increasing the risk of hydraulic failures.

Mr. Rankin: In view of the importance of using flame-resistant fluids owing to the heavier and faster machines that we are now operating, and the real danger of fire arising from friction at the point where the nose wheel collapses and when the brakes are applied, could the hon. Gentleman assure us that this research is going ahead with the greatest possible speed and efficiency?

Mr. Woodhouse: I should not like to have the danger exaggerated. In the past ten years there have been only two


accidents to U.K.-registered civil transport aircraft in which hydraulic fluids may have caused or contributed to a fire, and there were no casualties in either case. However, research is going forward. A new fluid is being tested now, and my Ministry has placed contracts to the value of £150,000 to promote this research.

Manchester Airport

Mr. W. Griffiths: asked the Minister of Aviation whether he will give an assurance that the Government will support the proposed extensions to the runway at Manchester Airport; and what financial assistance will be given to the Manchester Corporation to carry out these works.

Mr. Thorneycroft: No, Sir.

Mr. Griffiths: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that both in freight and passenger traffic Manchester Airport has been developing at an extraordinary rate in recent years, and that his reply will cause the greatest disappointment not only to people in Manchester but also to the aircraft operators? What does he propose to do about supporting any application in that area for facilities, including the provision of proper landing facilities for modern four-engined jet aircraft on the trans-Atlantic route?

Mr. Thorneycroft: I appreciate that any refusal to support additional investment expenditure must necessarily cause disappointment. I have a great respect for the energy and skill with which Manchester has pressed on with its airport; nevertheless, if I were to say "yes" to everything it would not be possible to contain expenditure at all.

Sir W. Bromley-Davenport: Would my right hon. Friend undertake not to give permission to extend this airport south into the Bollin Valley area? Apart from the fact that the filling in of this valley would be a very expensive operation, would it not also destroy agricultural land and a famous beauty spot in Cheshire?

Mr. Thorneycroft: My hon. and gallant Friend raises a further point. I have not even got as far as that, because I am not supporting the extension at all.

Mr. Hale: Would the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that this is not a question of not saying "yes" to anything? This is a question of the transport facilities available to several million of Her Majesty's subjects who feel that Manchester has been gravely discriminated against in the past and that expenditure in London is out of all proportion to the expenditure that is applied to this very large and important industrial area?

Mr. Thorneycroft: I can well understand the pressure to extend this runway for trans-Atlantic jet aircraft, but there are substantial facilities at Prestwick and Heathrow, and I really would be throwing away public money if I were at present to say "yes" to any other airports which claim that we should support them in extending their runways.

Sir A. V. Harvey: Will my right hon. Friend disregard what my hon. and gallant Friend and constituent the Member for Knutsford (Sir W. Bromley-Davenport) has said? How can the Minister possibly refuse this application, bearing in mind that Ringway serves 10 million people in a radius of 40 miles? How does he reconcile this decision with have pumped millions of pounds into Gatwick which handles only a few hundred movements a year, while disregarding what Manchester has asked for in respect of this vast enterprise which is an example of what can be done by leaving these matters to local government, and saying that passengers should go to Prestwick?

Mr. Thorneycroft: I share my hon. Friend's appreciation of what Manchester has done in this matter. At the same time, I know that my hon. Friend is as firm as any of my colleagues in wishing to contain Government expenditure.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOSPITALS

Acton Hospital (Nurses)

Mr. Holland: asked the Minister of Health how many nurses trained in Acton Hospital have become state registered during the past five years.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Edith Pitt): Seventy-six.

Mr. Holland: While thanking my hon. Friend for the information, may I ask whether she would not agree that as Acton Hospital is to continue as a general hospital for only about ten years, as I understand the new hospital plan, it will be extremely desirable if the small but particularly efficient unit should continue training nurses until the date of its metamorphosis?

Miss Pitt: I am sure it will not comply with the new conditions for recognition by the General Nursing Council, by which hospitals, in order to secure approval as training schools, should have a minimum of 300 beds, 240 of them occupied, and, if possible, a student establishment of 100. Acton is nowhere near those figures. Nevertheless it does make a contribution. I understand that it is being considered for training for the Roll, and I hope that will be the outcome.

Hospital Routines

Mr. Holland: asked the Minister of Health what progress is being made with his campaign to ease hospital routines.

The Minister of Health (Mr. Enoch Powell): Results are not capable of precise measurement, but the response has been encouraging and further progress in all the fields concerned will be continuously watched.

Mr. Holland: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this campaign has been generally welcomed, but that certain problems arise for hospital administration and nursing staff in adjusting routines? Would he not applaud the quiet and uncomplaining efficiency with which these schemes are being introduced?

Mr. Powell: Yes, indeed; this must be a continuous process. It is not a thing which can be brought about by decree or otherwise than by continuous study by all concerned.

Nurses

Mr. K. Lewis: asked the Minister of Health what special measures he intends to employ to increase recruitment of nurses, so that he will be able to implement the additional leave entitlement recently awarded to the profession.

Mr. Powell: It has been implemented.

Mr. Lewis: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this extra two weeks' holiday, an increase to six weeks for nurses, is not in fact wanted by large numbers of nurses because many of them cannot afford to take the holiday? Many of them are foreign nurses and they have nowhere to go when they have the extra holiday. Is my right hon. Friend aware that the management committee side thinks that this was a disastrous arbitration award, and will he consider making special payments or payments for overtime to those nurses who decide voluntarily that they are prepared to work for the hospitals during some of the extra leave period?

Mr. Powell: I should not wish to criticise the policy of the award which has been made and implemented. I think that it is a part of the reason for the increase in leave that the leave should actually be taken to afford an opportunity of relief and refreshment to people who work under very great pressure.

Dr. Stross: Will the Minister tell us whether nurses who feel themselves unable to afford to go away on holiday may none the less, without working, stay on in their rooms in hospital and have nothing to pay, taking a holiday in that way?

Mr. Powell: I have no reason to think otherwise.

Redundancy

Mr. K. Robinson: asked the Minister of Health what negotiations he has had with representatives of National Health Service staff on the subject of redundancy agreements in the event of staff becoming redundant through the closure of hospitals; and what has been the result.

Mr. Powell: Measures to deal with any staff redundancy have been discussed with staff representatives and will shortly be notified to hospital authorities.

Mr. Robinson: We all agree that the redundancy will be very small, but is the Minister aware that there is some anxiety among the staffs following the publication of his hospital plan? May I take it that the arrangements which


will be published have been reached with the agreement of the representatives of the staffs?

Mr. Powell: Yes, the arrangements have been thoroughly discussed with representatives of the staff, and I am not aware that there is any—certainly no substantial—disagreement. I expect the arrangements to be published in the next few days, and I shall let the hon. Gentleman have a copy as soon as they are out.

Mentally Subnormal Patients, Manchester

Mr. H. Hynd: asked the Minister of Health how many mentally subnormal patients are on the waiting list for hospitals in the Manchester Regional Hospital Board area; and what prospects there are of increasing the number of beds available.

Miss Pitt: Three hundred and forty-four last December; for proposed developments I would refer the hon. Member to Command Paper 1604.

Mr. Hynd: Is that not a very high figure for one type of case? Is the hon. Lady aware that there are waiting lists also in the regional hospital board area for other cases? Is the Manchester region getting its fair share of the resources available? If not, would it not be possible for other regions to help Manchester out with these long waiting lists?

Miss Pitt: No doubt the hon. Gentleman is aware that Liverpool has an extreme shortage of such beds, and, therefore, beds are pooled between Manchester and Liverpool. The new hospital plan provides for an increase in beds at Cranage Hall Hospital from 524 beds to 924, with an increase for the Liverpool region over the period of 1,500 beds. One further important point which I should add is that the Lancashire County Council has proposals for 14 hostels for sub-normal patients.

Mr. Hynd: Is the hon. Lady aware that this type of case means that those on the waiting lists are waiting for deaths in order to get vacancies? This is a rather different situation from that created by ordinary diseases. Will she give particular attention to the need for beds for this type of case?

Miss Pitt: The hospital development plan provides for a considerable increase in the number of beds available for subnormal patients. If the hon. Gentleman has a certain case in mind, I will look at it—on the understanding, of course, that I would not want to press for priority for a particular case.

Nottingham General Hospital

Mr. Hynd: asked the Minister of Health whether his attention has been drawn to the practice prevalent at Nottingham General Hospital of human bones removed in operations being given to nurses to wear as ear-rings; and what disciplinary steps he has taken or proposes to take.

Miss Pitt: No such practice exists.

Mr. Hynd: Then how does the hon. Lady explain that one of the surgeons in the operating theatre admitted that this practice exists and that he and his colleagues have given such bones to nurses, that one of the nurses in the operating theatre has said that this is common practice, and that other members of the staff have freely admitted this to the Press? How can the hon. Lady give such an answer when these statements are all on record? Will she make a further inquiry to see that any other barbaric practices of this kind are discouraged?

Miss Pitt: Both the nurses and the surgeon have strenuously denied making such statements; 220 nurses connected with ear, nose and throat work in any way have been interviewed and all deny that such a practice could have existed. The bone itself is only 3 mm. and I do not believe that it could even make an ear-ring. I am glad the hon. Gentleman asked this Question because it enables me to nail this lie.

Dr. Stross: How is it possible to call this barbaric? Even if this thing were true, these are only bone fragments, no longer required, which are taken out, just as gall stones are taken from the gall bladder. Will she not agree with me that even gall stones can be very attractive when polished and threaded and turned into a necklace?

Miss Pitt: This story is not true, and I do not feel called upon to go further.

Physiotherapists

Mr. Baird: asked the Minister of Health what are the salaries now being paid to physiotherapists in the National Health Service.

Miss Pitt: Between £525 and £1,155 per annum, depending on grade and length of service.

Mr. Baird: Does the hon. Lady realise that there is a grave shortage of these medical auxiliaries in the National Health Service? How does she expect to have an efficient Health Service when the auxiliaries are paid only a pittance and when applications for increases are turned down by the Ministry through the Whitley Council?

Miss Pitt: There has been an increase of 22 per cent. in these auxiliaries since 1949. Of course, the work is developing and there is need for more. As I have said before, salaries are a matter for the Whitley Council, before which there is a claim at the moment.

Mr. P. Browne: Has the Institute of Physiotherapists asked for an interview with the Minister? If so, what answer has it received? Will he grant an interview?

Miss Pitt: No formal approach has been made to my right hon. Friend.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF HEALTH

Cancer (Records Bureaux)

Mr. Boyden: asked the Minister of Health what are the obstacles to the establishment of complete and effective regional cancer records bureaux; and which regions are still below the desirable level of registration.

Miss Pitt: This is one of many developments competing for available resources. All regions undertake registration, but the ultimate aim of completeness has nowhere been reached.

Mr. Boyden: Why is it that the hon. Lady's colleagues are always saying that there are adequate funds available for cancer research when here are vital statistics which would go a long way towards making cancer research reliable? Why is not the strong effort which her own Chief Medical Officer

recommended in his last annual report being followed?

Miss Pitt: This expenditure is a matter for the individual hospital boards. We consider it important that the National Cancer Registration Scheme should cover all cases of cancer treated in hospitals, and on 22nd November last my right hon. Friend asked all hospital authorities to make further efforts to achieve complete registration. We propose to review the situation in June.

Welfare Foods

Mr. Frank Allaun: asked the Minister of Health if he will state the decrease in the distribution of orange juice, cod liver oil and vitamin tablets in the quarter ended 31st December, 1961, compared with the corresponding quarter in the previous year; and if, in view of the Government promise in April, 1961, that they would reconsider the charges then imposed under certian circumstances, he will now so reconsider them.

Mr. Powell: Sixty-one per cent., 64 per cent. and 48 per cent. I would refer the hon. Member to my reply to him on 26th February.

Mr. Allaun: Were we not told last April that no change was expected in the quantities taken up, but that if a change did occur, then the authorities would reconsider the matter? Is the Minister going to honour that promise, or is he going to dodge it as he did on 26th February when he told us that there was no evidence of any failure to obtain the necessary quantities of vitamin, which is quite a different point?

Mr. Powell: That is not dodging the undertaking at all. It is the outcome of the continuous review, which I am maintaining.

Mr. K. Robinson: Would the right hon. Gentleman tell the House what the assurance of his hon. Friend meant? If this decision was taken, as it appears to have been, on the assumption that there would be no change, and if there has in fact been a drop of two-thirds, is the Minister telling us that he refuses to consider it or that he has reconsidered it and proposes to do nothing?

Mr. Powell: It is the latter, because the evidence that I have is that there is no reason for anxiety about vitamin intake in spite of the movement of the figures since that time.

Mr. Manuel: Does the right hon. Gentleman not realise that changes in a downward direction concerning the health of children would be barely perceptable over a long period? Surely he should do something before he has evidence of deterioration in the health of our young children and mothers and not wait until it is apparent before doing something to reintroduce this free food?

Mr. Powell: No. What I realise to be the best way of ensuring vitamin intake is by selective methods, such as those applied by health visitors, and not by the indiscriminate subsidy which was abolished last year.

Mr. Short: asked the Minister of Health what reduction there has been in the total issues of welfare foods in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the last quarter of 1961, compared with the last quarter in 1960; to what he attributes this reduction; and what consultation he has had with the local authority on this matter.

Miss Pitt: With permission I will circulate the figures in the OFFICIAL REPORT. Sales fell after the price

Quarter ended
National Dried Milk
Orange juice
Cod Liver Oil
Vitamin A and D Tablets




(tins)
(bottles)
(bottles)
(packets)


31st December, 1960 (14 weeks)
…
41,469
25,132
4,588
2,864


30th December, 1961
…
35,943
8,558
1,731
1,351


Percentage Decrease*
…
7
63
59
49


*Correcting the 1960 figures to 13 weeks.

Mr. Manuel: asked the Minister of Health if he will give the total cost to public funds of advertising the nutritive value of welfare foods, since the price of these foods was increased.

Mr. Powell: I regret no estimate is possible.

Mr. Manuel: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that his answer will undoubtedly perturb many of us who are interested in this matter? Is he

changes on 1st June, 1961. The council has brought the reduction to my right hon. Friend's notice.

Mr. Short: On a point of order. I do not understand why three figures must be circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT and could not be given in the Reply. Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that the drop represents 27,000 items of welfare food over the same quarter in the previous year? Does her right hon. Friend really suggest that he is happy about this in one of the heavy industrial areas where a high proportion of the families are in the low income group? How much more evidence does the Minister want before he will honour his promise to review the position?

Miss Pitt: Rather than there being three figures, when the hon. Gentleman reads the answer he will see that there are twelve figures; in any case, it would appear from his supplementary question that he really knew the answer. The relevant indices prove that children are receiving adequate amounts of vitamins.

Mr. Speaker: The point which the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central (Mr. Short) raised on a point of order does not give rise to a point of order.

Following are the figures:

aware that it has cost the National Assistance Board about £100,000, since the charges went on, to issue vouchers? Many people in the low income groups—earning £8 to £9 a week—are not now obtaining these welfare foods. Can the right hon. Gentleman not admit defeat and honour the pledge given by his hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary and make an honest woman of her?

Mr. Powell: There is no reason why the hon. Gentleman should be perturbed


at the impossibility of making an estimate, because so much of the work of bringing these foods to the notice of the public is wrapped up with other work of local health authorities and cannot be disentangled and separately costed.

Mr. K. Robinson: Why does the right hon. Gentleman persist in what he must now regard, in view of his answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East (Mr. Frank Allaun) earlier, as a waste of public money? If, as the right hon. Gentleman says, there is no evidence that women and babies are not getting these welfare foods, why spend public money on advertising them?

Mr. Powell: Because the availability of these foods from local health authority sources should be known to those for whom they are intended. Those who do not get them from the local health authorities can and do obtain the great bulk of such foods from other sources.

Mr. Allaun: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I beg to give notice that, in view of the unsatisfactory nature of that reply, I shall seek to raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible moment.

Epileptics

Mr. Boyden: asked the Minister of Health how many patients requiring long-stay treatment in an epileptic colony are unable to secure admission.

Mr. Powell: Waiting lists total about 50.

Mr. Boyden: Are there not more patients needing treatment than are actually on the waiting lists? Does the Minister propose to increase the grant and make more facilities available so that more can get these facilities?

Mr. Powell: It may be that there are more patients than appear on the waiting lists, but it is not only epileptic colonies which provide accommodation and treatment for epileptics: on the one hand, there are local authority arrangements and, on the other, the various kinds of hospitals.

Orthoptists

Mr. Grey: asked the Minister of Health, having regard to the shortage of orthoptists in the North-East, what future plans he has for the area to train more people for this kind of job.

Miss Pitt: My right hon. Friend proposes to inquire if training requirements ought to be modified so that more orthoptists can be trained.

Mr. Grey: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that this shortage is a very serious matter indeed? Does she realise that one of the main causes for the shortage is the shockingly bad pay, which also applies in other parts of the service? Will she have regard to this urgent matter and try to increase the scales?

Miss Pitt: The question of salaries is a matter for the Whitley Council. There has been an increase of 55 per cent. in the number of orthoptists in the Health Service since 1949. But we think that we might look again at the training to see whether it is possible to increase the number of students.

Doctors

Dr. Dickson Mabon: asked the Minister of Health what steps are being taken, in view of the present shortage of medical practitioners, to encourage married women doctors available for part-time work to enter the employment of the National Health Service.

Mr. Powell: I have recently brought this source of recruitment to the attention of hospital boards. Local health authorities are also aware of it.

Dr. Mabon: Since the Minister made a serious error in endorsing the Willink Committee—which means that the shortage of doctors will be even more severe in seven or eight years than it is now—will he look at the matter again to see if it is possible to integrate some of these women into general practice as well as into the hospital service and elsewhere?

Mr. Powell: There is no reason why a married woman should not be taken on in certain areas as an assistant or partner in general practice, or, apart from the restricted areas, herself set up


single-handed. I agree that married women doctors would be a welcome addition to our total doctor force.

Mentally Retarded People

Mr. Spriggs: asked the Minister of Health whether, under his regulations, it is obligatory on local health authorities to keep a record of mentally retarded people.

Mr. Powell: No, Sir.

Mr. Spriggs: If there is no proper record taken of mentally disabled people, how is it possible for local health authorities to find out what the requirements are in their areas?

Mr. Powell: Most local authorities do, in fact, keep such a record, but there would be no point in making it obligatory since total ascertainment is a variable concept. But I have no doubt that local health authorities keep the records which they require to carry out their statutory duties.

Mr. Spriggs: asked the Minister of Health how many local authority health services are still without provision of centres or other facilities for training or occupation and the equipment and maintenance of such centres, as provided for in Part II, Section 6 (2) (b) of the Mental Health Act, 1959; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Powell: None, Sir.

Mr. Spriggs: Is it not a national scandal that, in this modern age, children are being born into this world who are mentally retarded and must enter manhood without having had a day's proper training? Is the Minister aware that "training" is the operative word? We have people with the ability to make these youngsters and young men fit to take a proper place in life among the fraternity in general. Will he not do something for them? After all, they are the children of ratepayers and taxpayers, but are, in many instances, receiving no training at all.

Mr. Powell: As my reply indicated, something is everywhere being done, and in Command Paper 1604 an indication was given of the scope for expansion. I hope that the plans which local health

authorities will be putting to me in the coming months will show the way in which they intend to develop this service in the coming years. I share with the hon. Gentleman his view concerning the great importance of this service.

Venereal Diseases

Dr. King: asked the Minister of Health what measures he proposes to introduce to deal with the recent increase in venereal diseases, as shown in the Annual Report of the Chief Medical Officer.

Mr. Powell: The inquiries now proceeding have not yet indicated any new measures which can usefully be taken.

Dr. King: Is the Minister aware that the increase for 1960 was about 10 per cent. and, particularly for the 19-year-old age group, it is very alarming? Does he realise that it seems almost certain that similar figures will obtain for 1961, and will he consult the Minister of Education with an idea of making some kind of joint endeavour, because this requires to be dealt with both medicinally and educationally? Will his Department again look at this suggestion very seriously? A contribution might at least be made by the compulsory notification of venereal disease?

Mr. Powell: The question of compulsory notification is a separate one, but I entirely agree that this is very largely an educational question. That is why, both on the education and health sides, an effort is being made; but no new proposals have come out of the current investigations which are proceeding.

Mr. K. Robinson: Can the Minister say to what extent this increase is due to the development of strains of microorganisms which are resistant to the present antibiotics? What progress has been made for developing new types of antibiotics which will themselves conquer these new strains of micro-organisms?

Mr. Powell: It was pointed out by my Chief Medical Officer in his last report that there are a large number of contributory factors. There is no major outstanding factor responsible for this phenomenon. I would rather not give an answer off the cuff on the medical point.

Prescriptions, Walsall

Mr. Wells: asked the Minister of Health by what percentage the number of prescriptions dispensed under the National Health Service in the County Borough of Walsall in the period March-August, 1961, inclusive, differed from the number prescribed in the like period of 1960.

Mr. Powell: A decrease of 11·7 per cent.

Mr. Wells: To what factors other than the increase in the Health Service charges does the Minister attribute the drop, and is this fall not greatly in excess of his assessment of a 2 per cent. decrease?

Mr. Powell: Yes, but it has largely been counterbalanced by the increase in the quantities prescribed, from which it is evident that those in chronic need of medicines are getting them without appreciable additional charges.

Mr. Wells: Will the right hon. Gentleman indicate more precisely what he means by "largely" in this context?

Mr. Powell: Yes, if the hon. Gentleman asks me a corresponding question on quantities and costs, I will give him the figures.

Drugs

Mrs. Butler: asked the Minister of Health what action he is taking to ensure that all new drugs are submitted to immediate, independent and reliable scrutiny before use in the National Health Service.

Mr. Powell: I have no powers to do this.

Mrs. Butler: Is the Minister aware that there is considerable medical and public concern about the number of drugs which recently have been shown to have very dangerous side effects, particularly the 40 abnormal births which are now believed to have been due to the taking of one particular sedative by expectant mothers? I know that this is a recurring problem, but when it comes to a child being born without limbs because the mother took a sedative during pregnancy, should the Minister not consult the Home Secretary to see if some machinery can be set up to screen drugs

before they are made available for public use.

Mr. Powell: Where side effects are concerned, and that is what the hon. Lady has in mind, the mere scrutiny of a drug would not be enough. What is necessary are clinical tests, and the terms of reference of the Cohen Committee were recently revised to enable it to recommend that there should be clinical tests in cases where it thinks advisable.

Lord Balniel: Can my right hon. Friend say whether, following the Report of the Cohen Committee and its recommendations, there has been a reduction in the amount of drugs being prescribed outside the British Pharmacopoeia list?

Mr. Powell: I should be obliged if my noble Friend would put that question down.

Mr. Shinwell: asked the Minister of Health what has been the total amount of drugs purchased from foreign sources since he became Minister of Health; what was their total cost; whether similar drugs are available which are manufactured in this country; and what is the actual difference in cost between the home-produced articles and those imported.

Mr. Powell: I regret that the information is not available.

Mr. Shinwell: In the absence of information but from his general knowledge of the subject, will not the Minister agree that a large volume of drugs is imported into this country and this is having a detrimental effect on the manufacturing industry here? If the reason for importing drugs from abroad is that they are cheaper, will he take into account the effect on the drug manufacturing industry in this country and the possibility of unemployment?

Mr. Powell: I should be loth to agree to any proposition in the absence of information. The major fact is that this country is a very big net exporter of drugs.

Mr. Shinwell: Is it not possible for the right hon. Gentleman to obtain information about the importation of drugs? Will he consult his right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade who, presumably, has statistics about imports? This information ought to be available.

Mr. Powell: The right hon. Gentleman's question might have referred to the National Health Service, and, as it was addressed to me, that was how I took it. If he wants the total figures, perhaps he will put a question down to my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Edelman: Is it not a fact that the freer importation of drugs from abroad has helped to keep down the cost of our domestic products, some of which were sold at exorbitant prices in the past?

Mr. Powell: I cannot believe that it would be practicable for this country, a major exporter of drugs, to prohibit imports.

Prescription Charges

Mrs. Castle: asked the Minister of Health whether he will now review the prescription charges.

Mr. Powell: I have nothing to add to my reply to the hon. Member for Wood Green (Mrs. Butler) and for Leicester, North-West (Sir B. Janner) on 11th December.

Mrs. Castle: Is the Minister aware that his predecessor told me two years ago that the Government would review the prescription charges at the end of the two-year period of voluntary limitation recommended by Sir Henry Hinchliffe's Committee? Has that review taken place, and can we have a statement of the result?

Mr. Powell: The review of the trend of prescriptions and prescribing costs would not be the basis for a change of the present policy. The whole question of prescription charges is continuously being examined. I must tell the House that there is still no reason to think that the yield of these charges cannot be far better spent elsewhere in the National Health Service than by reducing them.

Dr. King: Has not the right hon. Gentleman yet realised that the most obnoxious feature of the prescription charges is that they put a special penal tax on special diseases? Could not he go at least a step towards meeting the Opposition by allowing people such as diabetics to have all their medicaments on one prescription?

Mr. Powell: This has frequently been considered, but the difficulty of distinguishing one category of disease from another is almost insurmountable. The best way to deal with the matter is by the assistance which can be given in prescribing for a substantial period where the medicines are regularly required. If the hon. Gentleman has a particular case in mind, I will gladly look at it and see whether I can help.

Mr. K. Robinson: With regard to the increase put on prescription charges last February, did not the Minister tell the House that he would look at the matter after he had had twelve months' experience? Has not that period of twelve months now expired and has there not been a considerably larger fall in the number of prescriptions than he expected, and is it not a fact that this fall is not nearly balanced by the increase in the average cost of prescriptions, indicating that quantities prescribed have not increased commensurately with the drop in number?

Mr. Powell: The fall in numbers is due not only to the increase in prescribing for a longer period but also to the elimination of prescriptions which can be obtained for under 2s. There can be no exactitude in this matter, but the evidence is that the increase in quantities prescribed does substantially counterbalance the fall in the numbers.

Infant Mortality

Mr. W. Griffiths: asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that the most recent statistics issued by the medical officer of health in Manchester show an increase in the infant mortality figures which are 50 per cent. above the national average; to what factor he attributes this increase; and what action he is taking to help to reverse the trend.

Miss Pitt: Yes, Sir, approximately. The specific causes of the recent increase have still to be shown.

Mr. Griffiths: Is the hon. Lady aware that the medical officer of health of Manchester and all the best informed people know more about the matter than she does, because they attribute the increase, first, to lamentably bad housing in the city of Manchester and, second, to the shortage of maternity beds? Does


not she think that it is an indictment of the Government of which she is a member that, in 1962, more infants are being put in the grave and more stockbrokers and take-over bidders are growing fatter?

Miss Pitt: I do not think that the hon. Gentleman betrays a true concern for the Service in making comments of that kind. There was a sharp drop in the infant mortality figures for Manchester in 1957. I admit that the Manchester figures are higher than the national average, but, if there was a sharp drop in 1957, I cannot believe that the reasons for the increase which the hon. Gentleman adduces are the right ones. We are looking into the matter with the Medical Officer of Health for Manchester, who has prime responsibility, because we want to know the reasons. It is too early yet to talk of specific action.

Malaria Eradication

Mr. Prentice: asked the Minister of Health if he will make a statement on the progress of the malaria eradication campaign which is being conducted by the World Health Organisation; and what has been the effect of transferring the costs of the campaign to the regular budget of the Organisation; and whether this transfer has caused the United Kingdom Government to make a higher contribution to the budget.

Mr. Powell: The Organisation's budget for 1963, of which Her Majesty's Government will bear their due share, has been increased by the inclusion of $4 million towards the field costs of the campaign, which is expected to achieve considerable progress this year.

Mr. Prentice: Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that, between now and 1964—the transitional period—at least part of the cost of the campaign will be borne by the special fund to which the British Government refuse to contribute? Can he assure us that none of this vital work will be held up during the interim period because of lack of funds?

Mr. Powell: Yes, Sir. The hon. Gentleman is aware of the decision of the World Health Organisation to transfer this work to the General Budget.

Her Majesty's Government have always thought that that was the right decision, and the result will be that we shall bear, with other nations, our fair and full share of the cost of this work.

Mr. Prentice: Can the right hon. Gentleman precisely answer my question? I asked for an assurance that, between now and 1964—when the regular budget takes over the whole cost—the field work will not be held up through lack of funds.

Mr. Powell: It need not necessarily be held up. It is the policy of the W.H.O. that this work should be transferred to the general budget. The result of that will be that we shall be contributing to it as and when it is so transferred.

European Economic Community

Mr. Pavitt: asked the Minister of Health what consideration has been given to the effects on the National Health Service if Great Britain joins the Common Market.

Mr. Powell: Nothing in the Treaty of Rome would involve alteration of our National Health Service.

Mr. Pavitt: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in the six Common Market countries the health system operates on an insurance basis and in many cases on part-payment at the time of service, and that that is a different system from our own National Health Service? Is he further aware that there is a school of thought in this country which is anxious to convert the National Health Service to an insurance basis? Will he make representations to the Lord Privy Seal to ensure that the National Health Service is retained on its present principles if we join the Common Market?

Mr. Powell: All that is concerned in this Question is that our joining the Common Market would not involve any decision one way or another by this country on the future of the National Health Service.

Mr. Walker: Has my right hon. Friend been in consultation with the British Medical Association and the British Dental Association about their anxieties that signing the Rome Treaty would


have an effect on professional standards in this country and might also affect National Health Service standards?

Mr. Powell: I have had consultations with those two bodies and will have them in future, but there are specific safeguards about these matters in the Rome Treaty.

Senior Dental Officer

Mr. Baird: asked the Minister of Health when the new Senior Dental Officer of his Department was appointed; who he is, what his qualifications are; and how many applications he received after the vacancy was advertised.

Mr. Powell: The last appointment, of Mr. R. A. Campbell, was in October, 1959, by promotion within the Department.

Mr. Baird: I am referring to the question of the Senior Dental Officer of the right hon. Gentleman's Ministry, Admiral Holgate, and I want to know why he was appointed and why the job was not advertised before he was appointed.

Mr. Powell: The hon. Gentleman appears to be giving information and not asking for it. His information is inaccurate. He has confused the Senior Dental Officer with the Chief Dental Officer. I have written to him giving him all the particulars about the Chief Dental Officer.

NUCLEAR TESTS (FOREIGN MINISTERS' MEETING)

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Macmillan): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement.
The House will have read the announcement about nuclear tests made by the President of the United States on Friday evening, 2nd March. This followed close and intimate consultation between the British and the United States Governments.
Last autumn, after the massive Russian tests, the President and I made statements in very similar terms as to the conditions which we would observe in deciding whether new tests by the West were necessary on military grounds.
At our Bermuda meeting, in December, we discussed this subject at length, and issued a communiqué in the following terms:
The President and the Prime Minister … agreed that it is now necessary, as a matter of prudent planning for the future, that pending the final decision preparations should be made for atmospheric testing to maintain the effectiveness of the deterrent.
Meanwhile, they continue to believe that no task is more urgent than the search for paths toward effective disarmament, and they pledge themselves to intensive and continued efforts in this direction.
We have adhered strictly to the letter and the spirit of both parts of this communiqué. It has become increasingly clear that while we may to some extent discount the claims which Soviet leaders have made for the military effects of their tests, we cannot ignore them altogether. The Russians have certainly acquired from their tests much useful information, on which further development is now being pressed forward with all the vast resources of the Communist empire, and it may be that these developments include significant advances in defence capability.
The President and I have, therefore, been forced to the conclusion that we now face a potential threat to the deterrent power of the Western strategic armoury. We understand the formidable practical problems of devising a defence against missiles: yet, whilst the arms race continues, we dare not fall behind in the struggle between offensive and defensive capabilities with their increasingly complex systems of decoys, counter-measures and all the rest. To wait until one was certain that the Russians had made significant advances in this or any other field of nuclear development would be clearly to wait until it was too late to restore the balance of the deterrent on which the defence of the free world rests. This new series of tests, must, therefore, however regretfully, be started. They will be as limited as possible in size and will amount to only a small proportion of the recent Russian tests in explosive power.
As I told the House on 8th February, the British Government view with deep distress the prospect of a renewed rivalry in nuclear tests. I made this very clear to the President at Bermuda and he entirely agreed with me. I think that the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of


the Opposition described President Kennedy as a reluctant tester. This is, indeed, clear from his words when, on 2nd March, he described the tests as "grim and unwelcome".
It was for that reason that after studying the matter on a purely technical and military basis, we spent so much effort in trying to devise some new approach on the political side. On 8th February, I described to the House the proposal which the President and I had jointly made as a result of our full discussions. We still think it to be a very practical one. Among other proposals we urged that before the meeting of the 18-Power Committee, representatives of Britain, the United States and Russia—the Foreign Ministers and their staffs—should meet together and lay the foundations for some arrangement to call a halt to the nuclear arms race. To this offer Mr. Khrushchev's original counter-proposals made no direct reply. But we remain ready to discuss this question. Our offer to do so is repeated in the President's statement. This is not an ultimatum, but a sincere and genuine appeal.
This is a bleak dilemma which we have had to face. Yet I do not see how any President of the United States who carries the main burden for the future defence of the West, or any British Government which carries some part of the responsibility, could have reached any other conclusion. There are still several weeks, nearly two months, before this programme of tests is due to begin.
I have just received a note from Mr. Khrushchev which states that he is now broadly agreed to the procedure which the President and I proposed on 8th February. We suggested that the 18-Power conference should comprise, in the first stage, the Foreign Ministers of the countries concerned. Mr. Khrushchev has now accepted this. He has also agreed that the Foreign Ministers of the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union should meet in Geneva as we had proposed a few days before the conference meets. While Mr. Khrushchev does not indicate in his letter to me that the draft treaty of April, 1961, is acceptable to the Soviet Government, I hope that the progress made on this aspect of disarmament will

be such as to make it possible for President Kennedy and myself to meet Mr. Khrushchev in Geneva to conclude the final stages of a treaty to ban nuclear tests.

Mr. Gaitskell: Is the Prime Minister aware that the information which he has just given that Mr. Khrushchev has accepted the proposal that the Foreign Ministers should meet in Geneva before the conference begins will be warmly welcomed on both sides of the House? Following that up, may I ask the Prime Minister whether the Americans and ourselves are sticking firmly to the draft treaty of April, 1961, or whether they propose to put forward new suggestions which are somewhat more flexible than that treaty for a ban on nuclear tests?

The Prime Minister: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for the first part of his question. I think that he is right in saying that there is a general sense that new hope may come from this new communiqué.
With regard to the second part of the right hon. Gentleman's question, we think—and we worked hard on it—that the draft treaty of April, 1961, is a reasonable basis for discussion. But we are, of course, prepared to consider any proposals which can help to make it acceptable. We have already made such suggestions to the United States Government, and they to us, and we are considering those. The only thing that is necessary is to provide for some system of international verification.

Mr. Gaitskell: I think that most of us at least would agree on the necessity for some system of international verification, to quote the Prime Minister's words. Could the right hon. Gentleman be a little more precise? Is it the intention of the American and British Governments to put forward modified proposals when the Foreign Ministers meet Mr. Gromyko at Geneva on 11th March?

The Prime Minister: I think that we had better take the treaty as a basis for discussion. I am quite sure that by then, our representatives, both British and American, will be armed with powers either to make or to accept proposals within the general ambit of our joint purpose.

Mr. Grimond: Can the Prime Minister tell us why it was necessary to make this announcement about further tests only five weeks before the disarmament meeting? Would it not have been better to have left the decision and the announcement in order to see how the conference works out? Secondly, can the right hon. Gentleman tell the House whether the British tests in Nevada are concerned with counter-missile missiles?

The Prime Minister: I have nothing to add to what I have already said about the British tests at Nevada.

Mr. Manuel: The Prime Minister has not told us anything.

The Prime Minister: On security grounds, I am not prepared to describe their precise character.
With regard to the first part of the right hon. Gentleman's question, it is, of course, arguable that we should have waited. I do not, however, think that it would have been very proper to have made this announcement at any date between 14th March and 1st June, because that would not have been very suitable. Therefore, there is a great deal to be said for making the announcement now. The fact that we are still to have the meeting, and under what, I hope, are better auspices, shows that that judgment was a correct one.
With regard to delay, I would only say this, and I have said it before. I think that successive American Governments have been patient. I remember certainly two occasions on which I pleaded with a former President—President Eisenhower—to hold his hand and to continue the voluntary unofficial moratorium, when, I am bound to say, his advisers were taking a rather different attitude. This lasted for three years and it was quite clear from what happened at the end of the three years that the tremendous massive test was being prepared during that time. I therefore think that there is a point at which—it is a matter of judgment—we are more likely, perhaps, to get results by this method; and I still hope that we shall get results.

Mr. Shinwell: The right hon. Gentleman has just said, in reply to the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Liberal Party, that he declines to disclose any information on further details of this

test, but did he not, in his original statement, refer to the atmospheric test proposed to take place on Christmas Island as being a contribution to defence against missiles? I think that is what the right hon. Gentleman said. Does that apply to the Nevada test? Are we to understand that the Nevada test will be a contribution to defence against missiles, or is it for some other reason?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. I said on 31st October and made it very clear—and I will not quote all the words—that I drew a great distinction between underground and atmospheric testing, that the great feeling in the world was to get rid of them all but that the great danger was the atmospheric testing. I said that the President and I would only have regard to the need for atmospheric testing if it was justified by the kind of military danger which I described-missile, anti-missile, counter-missile and counter-anti-missile. The Nevada underground test is another matter. The danger from fall-out—if there is any—in particuler tests comes from atmospheric testing. The test is part of a series of tests which the Americans and ourselves have carried out for the general purpose of the improvement of weapons.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Since this is a matter of vital importance, may I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman is to ask the House of Commons to support him by a definite Motion? Is he aware that many people here want to show their discontent with this statement? Has not the House of Commons the right to pass its judgment on this? Since the right hon. Gentleman described the Russian tests as brutal and cynical, and used every other kind of objective, will he tell the House how he can possibly defend these tests without committing himself to a charge of blatant hypocrisy?

The Prime Minister: On the second part of the hon. Member's supplementary question, I said, and I repeat, that after three years' voluntary moratorium it seemed to us that that massive series of tests, clearly prepared during that period, was a somewhat cynical approach to the problem.
As to the first part of the hon. Member's question, if a Motion is put down against what the Government have decided I would be very glad to try to defend it.

Mr. Bellenger: Does the Prime Minister realise that, whatever may be the proprieties of a premature disclosure of the nature he has made to us today, anxious people all over the world are grateful that at least we have some limited measure of agreement with Mr. Khrushchev?

The Prime Minister: The Prime Minister indicated assent.

Mrs. Butler: In view of the need for restraint and the unimaginable consequences if things go wrong at Geneva, may I ask the Prime Minister whether he would consider discussing with President Kennedy and Mr. Khrushchev the possibility again of a voluntary ban on testing, not just for the two months which America has announced but until an effective test ban agreement has been signed by all the nuclear Powers? Would not that enable discussion in Geneva to proceed in an atmosphere free from the threat of resumed tests?

The Prime Minister: I do not wish to add to any difficulties there are and I would rather hope to rest on what satisfaction we may take, which is considerable, from Mr. Khrushchev's reply to my letter. I can only say that I think that events have shown that a voluntary ban without any kind of organisation to watch it, umpire it, test it, or look after it, is not a satisfactory method of dealing with what amounts to life and death matters between two parts of the world.

Mrs. Castle: Is it not a fact that atmospheric tests are self-policing and that it has been found that the bulk of underground tests can also be detected by instruments which already exist inside the territories of all the countries concerned? Does not this provide a basis for a starting point on an agreement to have a ban on further nuclear tests, knowing that we can detect if it has been broken? Therefore, we could proceed from there to negotiate the next stage of controlled disarmament, which might be more difficult. Is it not a fact that this would be a contribution towards the creation of confidence to make that next stage possible?

The Prime Minister: While not accepting in full what the hon. Lady has said, it is perfectly true that the remarkable advance of scientific instruments

may make it easier to arrange for some form of international verification without some of the difficulties which hitherto have made it difficult for the Russians to accept.

Mr. M. Foot: Can the right hon. Gentleman confirm the statement made by many leading American authorities, just after the run of Russian tests, which has been repeated in the last few days, that the West still retains a substantial lead in nuclear power? If that is so, is it not a fact that if the West went ahead with H-bomb tests they would be giving another twist to the arms race? Can the right hon. Gentleman say how many tests the Americans propose to carry out in the Pacific and what will be the degree of fall-out from them? If the right hon. Gentleman will not give these answers, how can we test what he has been saying about American intentions there?

The Prime Minister: If the hon. Member puts Questions on the Order Paper in detail I will see whether I can answer them, but I must have time to study them.
On the first part, I think that I said that the Americans and ourselves together have the advantage of the power as it now stands, but that is not to say that there may not be some devices developed which may reverse that. What I was trying to say was that we must not be behind-hand and allow ourselves to get into a position when that advantage is taken away from us suddenly without our having done any work in reply.

Mr. Gaitskell: Is not the real problem that there is no guarantee, even if the West refrained from further tests, that the Russians would do so? Is not the real answer a multilateral agreement to ban all tests?
May I say that I disagree with the Leader of the Liberal Party? I believe that it was right to make the announcement. The important thing, however, is what the announcement contains. In that connection, may I ask the Prime Minister whether, supposing that there is very real progress in the next two months towards agreement, he will use


his influence with President Kennedy—if it really seems likely that agreement will be reached—to defer a little while longer the resumption of tests?

The Prime Minister: Without pledging myself to anything, I can say that the right hon. Gentleman knows, as I know—and the President carries a greater burden, but I carry quite a heavy one, our country having made Christmas Island available—that both the President and myself approached the decision which we had to make on this matter with the deepest regret and dislike. If we can make progress, and if we can avoid this, I am sure that we shall try to make the best use of that progress.

DEFENCE

3.49 p.m.

The Minister of Defence (Mr. Harold Watkinson): I beg to move,
That this House approves the Statement on Defence, 1962, contained in Command Paper No. 1639.
Before we start our debate, may I welcome the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker) and wish him well in his first venture on the wide—and perhaps the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) would agree—often uncharted seas of defence philosophy. At least the right hon. Member for Smethwick is a traditionalist in that the usual censure Amendment appears on the Order Paper.
I am very conscious that this is the third time that, inevitably, I have to subject the House to a series of highly compressed facts in presenting the White Paper. I only promise to be as plain and as brief as I can. I think that a daily newspaper called my speech on last year's White Paper "grey and sober." I think that that is an accurate description, because if one knows all the facts about nuclear weapons—I certainly have to know them—it is a grey and sober experience.
Speaking as Minister of Defence, nobody would be more delighted than I if the initiative which the Prime Minister has just described to the House proved to be fruitful and led at least to a treaty banning nuclear tests. That would be a great advance. None the less, as long as there are nuclear weapons, this remains the greatest problem in our military history, and it cannot be brushed aside. The hard fact is that, as long as there are nuclear weapons, they must condition every kind of military thought and activity. I believe that as long as they exist Britain has her essential part to play.
I therefore think that it is right that the White Paper has taken careful account of how we see war in a nuclear age and it is right that, against a nuclear background, the Government have set out the broad outline of their strategy for the 1960s. This is based on an immense amount of work and study by the Government's advisers over the past two years. Here, I might be allowed to say how grateful I am to them. They


have enabled the Government to produce a White Paper which is sharper and clearer in its long-term outline than has been produced for some years, because its main concept—the concept of unified command, joint service operations and greater mobility and hitting power—has been generally welcomed.
The Government therefore believe that this is the best kind of framework within which the Government's defence objects, which are set out in paragraph 3 of the White Paper, can be achieved. We can say this because what we advocate for the future has been tested by results and is, at least to some extent, the result of practical achievement. My first purpose, therefore, is to deal with some of the successful achievements on which we have tried to base our future long-term policy.
Let me turn, first, to recruiting. My right hon. Friends the Service Ministers and myself have been much criticised from time to time for sticking to the policy of creating all-Regular forces. We went on with our task because we believed that Regular long service men were the right basis for our new defence strategy. I have never understood those who maintain that the conscript principle is better than the volunteer principle. Any form of compulsory service, however hedged around, can only be a very bad second best.
Two-and-a-half years ago, when I came to this task, I felt sure that one of the main aims of our defence policy must be to make it possible to get all the men we needed on the basis of volunteers who were willing and proud to serve their country in this way. On the last lap of the five-year period, I think that my right hon. Friends and I can fairly claim to be making a success of this task. I say this not because television and better publicity have increased the numbers substantially—which they have—but because, over the whole field, we now have, I think, the kind of climate which will make people believe in and see the solid advantages of a career in the Services.
We have for the first time the right kind of job indoctrination in the Services. We have a much better acceptance of the man as an individual, much better man management, much more concern for married men, much better accommodation, and all the rest. In other

words, the figures are based on solid fact.
The 25 per cent. by which the Army has increased recruiting over 1961 as a whole, or the 40 per cent. by which recruiting has increased over the last five months, is a tendency which, I think, can continue. The January figures, published today, support this contention. They show that recruiting in the Army is 22 per cent. up on last year, or 40 per cent. up on the same month in 1960. I am grateful to my honorary adviser on recruiting, Sir Frederic Hooper, and to all those who work so hard at this task.
It is important that I should open this presentation of the White Paper with these figures, because I cannot see any reason why this trend should not continue. Therefore, I cannot see any reason why Regular recruiting should not, as paragraph 36 of the White Paper says, give us as many men as our long-term plans require. They will be better and more efficient men and will serve on the right long-term basis because they are Regulars.
I should like the right hon. Member for Smethwick, when he moves his Amendment, to tell us why he has no confidence in all-Regular forces as the basis of defence policy, because we should get this plain between us. The Opposition's Amendment is a general censure on the policy set out in the White Paper.

Mr. Gordon Walker: It is selective.

Mr. Watkinson: I am delighted to hear that it is a selective Amendment. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will tell us how selective it is.
Meantime, we propose to get on with the fascinating task of creating long-service professional forces. The aim is a defence force of between 390,000 and 400,000 British Service men, with the highest possible proportion in effective combat units. This we can achieve because of the success of something of which little account is taken, namely, the success of the civilianisation policy which now allows our uniformed forces to be backed up with an equal number of civilians. In other words, there is one civilian member of the forces backing each uniformed member.
That means that the structure of our peacetime forces will contain nearly 800,000 men, all on essential duties, whether in uniform or not, because all contribute directly to the strength of the total forces. Behind these 800,000 men are the Navy, Army and Air Force reserves, particularly the Territorial Army Emergency Reserve, the "Ever-readies", which, I am sure, will be a great success, and will play a much more significant part in our planning and policy once they are formed.
It therefore looks—and I say this with reasonable confidence—that we can get the men we need for our new all-Regular forces. While the new strategy is given further detailed study, I do not propose to lay down precise manpower ceilings for each Service. What we propose to do is to go flat out on recruiting for all three Services in the knowledge that all will work more closely together in future.
This brings me to the question of pay for the Armed Forces. The biennial review provided for under the Grigg Report, due this year, has been carried out in the usual way. The results are now to hand and they point to fully justified increases in emoluments, averaging 9½ per cent. for other ranks and rather more than 5 per cent. for officers. By "emoluments" I mean the basic emoluments—pay, marriage allowance and ration allowance. The Government attach great importance to carrying out pledges on service pay. I think that everyone in the House agrees that the Services are in a class apart from the general body of wage and salary earners. I am certain, therefore, that it would not be right or fair to apply to them the full rigour of current wage restraint policy.
Nevertheless—this is my decision—I believe that the Services themselves should not wish to be excepted from all sacrifice at a time when others are called upon to exercise restraint in the national interest. Therefore, the Government have decided to pay these increases in two equal instalments—the first half on 1st April this year and the other half on 1st April next year. Each payment will add about £14 million to the defence budget. The full details will be issued in a White Paper later this month. I thought that the House would like to

have the earliest information of what we have decided to do.

Mr. F. J. Bellenger: Does that have any effect on the figures which the right hon. Gentleman is now giving to the House?

Mr. Watkinson: Obviously, that will require a Supplementary Estimate, and a very worth-while one.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Where is the Chancellor of the Exchequer?

Mr. Watkinson: If the forces have a trade union leader, it is I. I must look after their interests, and I intend to do so.

Mr. Harold Wilson: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us of any precedent in Parliamentary history of a Supplementary Estimate being announced before the beginning of the financial year to which the main Estimates relate?

Mr. Watkinson: I have not announced a Supplementary Estimate.

Mr. H. Wilson: The right hon. Gentleman has done so.

Mr. Watkinson: No, I did not. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will be kind enough to recall that I said that I thought the House would like to know the cost of the proposals, and in answer to a question I said that this would require a Supplementary Estimate. If the right hon. Gentleman does not support this increase in pay for the Services, perhaps he will be kind enough to say so when the time comes. I am not in any doubt of the Government's position.
Now I turn to another successful operation on which much of our future planning is based—the operation in Kuwait. Its importance was that it gave us a chance to have a real test of the framework of future defence policy. For example, unified command was tested not only in Aden and Bahrein, but in the general operation of the exercise in Whitehall. It proved an excellent test of joint Service control in the Ministry of Defence, and I think that my right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) would have enjoyed seeing the headquarters he knows so well—the Ministry of Defence—and in which


he played such a noble and historic part, once again being put to some useful service.
As a result of the experience gained in this operation, as set out in paragraph 42 of the White Paper we have decided to set up a joint Service operational staff in order continuously to process current plans and to ensure that the framework is ready for immediate action when required at any moment.
Kuwait also proved our increasing air mobility. For example, we had a strong paratroop force poised ready to fly in if there had been an opposed landing. As R.A.F. Transport Command now has well over 100 fixed-wing aircraft of various types on order, this mobility will steadily increase. It also proved the usefulness of the amphibious task force which we have strengthened in the Middle East Command, and which remains there.
There were lessons to be learned, and they have been learned, but what Kuwait proved was that the doctrine of unified command, of joint Service operations, the doctrine of the task force concept, both seaborne and airborne, was the right basis of the future plans set out in the White Paper, and I hope that those hon. Members who are interested in this will read paragraphs 23 and 24, which set out very clearly the concept of being able to poise forces by air and sea from a limited number of bases.
To develop the new doctrines and techniques which we shall require for this policy, I have set up in the Ministry of Defence a joint Service staff which, through my Deputy Chief of Defence Staff, is responsible to the Chiefs of Staff and myself. I attach great importance to the work of this new organisation. The joint Service staff, and the joint Service exercises round the world can be used not only to train forces, but to poise them for rapid use in any emergency. As we learn to work more closely together, I think that new possibilities of rationalisation and co-operation will open up, so I think that this basic idea has been tested and is right.
There were a wide range of other operations, all of which demonstrated our growing mobility and flexibility. There was the hurricane in British Honduras; the Congo airlift which went on month after month for the United Nations; and

the rescue work in the East African floods, with naval helicopters, among other things. We poised at least two major operations for South-East Asia, which I am delighted to say have not been called on. In British Guiana recently we showed how quickly British forces could be flown half way across the world.
In Berlin, we have met every operational requirement. British forces are playing their full part in all preparations to maintain access, and SACEUR has been the first to recognise the full part that British forces are playing. Perhaps the House will allow me to pay a tribute, with which I think all hon. Members agree, to the steadiness and efficiency of our Berlin forces and their Commanding Officer.
The success of all these various operations clearly shows that at least we are planning on the right lines. I do not see what more we can ask of Armed Forces than that they should carry out successfully and efficiently all that they are asked to do, and I have a sense of great pride in the first-class job that these British Service men are doing for their country.
Now I turn to the broader strategy set out in the White Paper, and it is very largely a question of trying to get the right balance. Those who seek to challenge its conclusions must find a better balance or a more workable alternative, and I do not think that they will find this an easy task.
Let me give some examples of our commitments. We are equally committed to three major alliances—N.A.T.O., CENTO, and S.E.A.T.O. We have to make our contribution to all three. We also have those areas of the world where we stand alone, and it seems to the Government inescapable that in our small world the collapse of one alliance must undermine the rest. For example, I do not think anybody would challenge the statement that N.A.T.O. and CENTO are closely interlocked, and, if peace is indivisible, then I think that all our alliances are interdependent and we must play our full part wherever we are needed. How to do this is set out in our plans for the future with regard to overseas bases and garrisons.
Here is really in the long term a fundamental change in policy. It is no longer a concept of British forces dispersed


round the world in small pockets, but a concentration on three main bases from which to fan out by air and sea. These bases are Britain, Aden, and Singapore. The treatment of bases must differ on each side of the air barrier, and I think that the House knows what I mean by that—the area of the Middle East and North Africa and other places where air staging rights are not always easy to obtain.
North of this area, that is to say in N.A.T.O. and the Atlantic areas, there is no air staging problem. Therefore, over this period Britain will become the main base and we shall not require to hold large armed forces in the Mediterranean for operations elsewhere. It would clearly be much more efficient to provide such forces direct by air from Britain. Therefore, what we want in Gibraltar, Malta, North Africa and Cyprus, are facilities, stockpiles and limited garrisons. Cyprus, of course, remaining the main air base for CENTO under the command of the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief. This will save overheads and, over the period will result in a return to Britain of forces which can strengthen our central reserve here.
Of course, consultation will have to take place, and I appreciate only too well the difficulties in, for example, Malta, where the presence of British Services has provided so much of the livelihood of the island. But that is our long-term plan—a thinning out in the Mediterranean area, based on the capacity for rapid air reinforcement.
South of the barrier the story is different. Here we have to hold larger forces because we cannot always rely on immediate staging rights. These forces will be fully air portable and there must be at least one, and possibly later two, modern amphibious task forces in the area so that we can poise forces at sea.
As an idea of the size of the task, I wonder how many hon. Members realise that the Middle East Command alone—that is to say, the command based on Aden—covers over 7 million square miles. It may be asked, "Is it right to rely upon Aden and Singapore? May not there come a change in policy, or an alteration in the Commonwealth, which will deny these to us?" We must insure against that possibility, however

unlikely we may think it. We have already had an interesting experience on the island base of Gan. We also use other islands. There is a possibility of using the Seychelles. Beyond the strategy of the three main bases east of Suez, we are examining a possible strategy which could be based on these small islands, where we can have an airfield and an anchorage and be independent of most political problems.
I do not believe that a better method can be found of meeting our commitments. We can jettison commitments, but a policy of scuttling out of them is not one that the Government believe would do anything but make war more likely.

Mr. George Brown: Except in Europe.

Mr. Watkinson: Therefore, after the most careful and detailed examination, we believe that this strategy will enable us to meet all our commitments with the manpower and resources available over the period ahead. We shall see considerable manpower savings as our internal security task diminishes in the area of the world that I have been describing, and this will strengthen our forces in Britain as well as in our other bases.
Although disarmament is covered very clearly in the White Paper, I know that the House will not expect me to deal with this subject today, except to say—as I have already said, and sincerely believe—that nobody more than myself wishes that the new initiative at Geneva will lead to success and to an end of this stupid business of the nuclear test race.
But having said that, I must turn to the nuclear problem. I do not think that the nuclear deterrent has ever had a more severe test than in recent events in the Far East, the Middle East and Europe. So far, it has worked. I do not believe that anything else would have stopped a war, and I believe that if ever we show that we fear to retaliate with nuclear weapons war will become inevitable. That is why, in paragraphs 7 to 9 of the White Paper, we have tried to set out as carefully and as factually as we can how we think this balance should be maintained, and why we think that anything that weakens the nuclear deterrent increases the chance of war.
This brings me to the immense problem of maintaining the validity of the Western nuclear deterrent. This task must be of major concern to the American and British Governments as the only way of holding the peace, as we say in the White Paper, until disarmament can provide, as we pray it will, a more lasting solution. This justifies the recent American and British decisions.
The amount that Britain still has to contribute to the joint task should not be underestimated. An example of recent technical collaboration is the small Nevada test, which was arranged last year before the Bermuda meeting but after the Russian test series had begun. As my right hon. Friend has just said, this was an underground test, which took place successfully on 1st March. Its purpose was to test a British development which will advance significantly our own weapon technology and, therefore, the nuclear strength of the West as a whole. It will certainly enable the easier handling of nuclear weapons.
I do not see how we can forgo this kind of improvement in the struggle between the offensive and the defensive, where the Russians have sought to obtain unilateral advantages. This was something that our scientists contributed to the common effort, and we are grateful to the United States for providing facilities.
I want to say a word about the military aspects of the United States test at Christmas Island and why we felt, and feel, that, failing an agreement—which we certainly hope will come about—these tests must go forward. First, the assessment of Russian nuclear weapon development is not a very easy task. Anything that happens in a democracy can be read about in the newspapers—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Oh, yes, especially on my front, in our technical newspapers and the American technical newspapers. Anyway, we are not provided with this kind of information by the Russians. Every effort is made to obscure the situation and to mislead the West as to their progress in this critical field.

Mr. R. T. Paget: Can the right hon. Gentleman refer me to a technical paper which will tell me what

was tested at Nevada? I have asked several times in the House, without success. Perhaps there is a technical newspaper which will tell me.

Mr. Watkinson: I have told the hon. and learned Gentleman. If he will be kind enough to read what I have said he will see that I have told him the facts, so far as security conditions allow. At least, the Russians do not tell us when they are making underground tests or any other tests. The House either wants to understand this problem or it does not. On the whole, I think that it does.
It is the basis for some very difficult decisions, which may yet come upon us, and I propose to try to set it out as clearly as I can. First, any development of a successful defence against ballistic missiles achieved by one side would obviously dramatically upset the whole balance on which the deterrent rests. For some time it has been clear—from what indications we have been able to get—that the Russians have been devoting an increasing slice of their technical effort to this problem. I know that it is a very difficult one. For example, what we are trying to do is to direct one missile against another at an approach speed of between 15,000 and 20,000 m.p.h.—or between twenty and thirty times the speed of sound. But did not we underestimate the Russians' capacity to launch their first sputnik? We may have made a similar underestimation of their progress in the anti-ballistic missile programme.
Progress in this field is shown by the fact that a weapons designer must try to increase the number of options open to him and to the military forces by whom the weapons are deployed. I mean by this that the need has to be met by achieving a greater yield of explosive power per unit weight of warhead, because this permits either a greater potential range in the weapon or, alternatively, a higher payload to provide a greater capacity to incorporate all the electronic counter-measures, decoy systems and the rest of the complicated art of confusing any defending or attacking system.

Mr. E. Shinwell: This is very interesting. Is this what we are doing, or is the right hon. Gentleman referring to the United States?

Mr. Watkinson: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I am trying to indicate what we think the Russians are doing at the moment—as best we can estimate it. We think that they are trying to lighten the payload in their weapons in order that they can incorporate these technical devices which are an absolutely essential part of the art of either defending against ballistic missiles or attacking a defending system.
I have said that the Soviet Union have clearly made advances in their yield-to-weight ratios. They have also obviously acquired a lot of useful information upon which they can base further developments. They may have obtained a good deal of weapons effects information, particularly in the field of communications. To wait until we are absolutely certain about his kind of development is probably to wait until it is too late—to wait, in fact, until the balance has been tipped decisively against us.
Therefore, if we have to face this decision the Government are quite clear that we should not be carrying out our duty to maintain the efficiency of the Western deterrent if we did not agree to this limited series of tests, much as we hope that they may be avoided by a nuclear test agreement, which I do not believe would be a very difficult thing to sign now, if the Russians wanted to go ahead and stop this race. It is not, or it will not be, an easy decision to take if, in the end, we have to go on. But I fear that it is only by keeping this balance of the deterrent that we can hope to hold the peace.
I wish now to refer briefly to the contribution of the Government to the Western deterrent. Our position is quite plain. So long as we can continue to make a significant contribution of our own to the Western deterrent, thus adding to its effectiveness, we intend to do so. I think that recent developments support this belief. Russian attempts to step up their defensive capacity, whether against missiles or anything else, clearly put an increasing premium on mobility, flexibility and dispersal of the Western deterrent forces, and, therefore, the contribution that British nuclear forces would make by diversifying methods of retaliation are a most important element in maintaining the balance of deterrent

power. In other words it is, in my view, 10 per cent. of the British defence budget very well spent.
I turn now to defence and the economy and I wish to make it plain that we are maintaining—as I said last year, and, I think, the year before—that the defence budget should take around 7 per cent. of the gross national product. Next year's figures will be about the same. This means that we are spending more than any other N.A.T.O. nation, except the United States of America and France, and spending about £100 million more this year. The Government, therefore, have certainly not sought to cut defence, and our judgment is that this is about the right proportion of our resources to contribute to this task. But it does not mean that the painful task of containing the defence budget—that is a very difficult task indeed—must not go forward.
Here is the main element of balance in defence policy. Those who would have larger forces or heavier commitments must face a defence budget which would run well above £2,000 million a year. Those who say that we must cut our defence must clearly say what they would cut in commitments, men and weapons. Those who accept the current figures and the commitments will find it difficult to avoid striking the balance where the Government have struck it.
I wish now to turn to N.A.T.O. As the White Paper says again and again we clearly accept that
… the provision of adequate forces to support the strategic objectives of N.A.T.O. must continue to be one of Britain's primary responsibilities as far as we can see in the present decade.
Therefore, the Government intend to remain what I hope we have always been since we helped to found the Alliance—a good N.A.T.O. ally. Those who criticise our contribution should in fairness at least remember what it is. We commit to the Alliance 85 per cent. of the operational and reserve Fleets; 50 per cent. of all Royal Air Force front-line aircraft including the whole of Fighter Command and 100 per cent. of all surface-to-air guided missiles in Britain.
In Europe at the moment—turning to manpower—we have 60,000 British Servicemen, plus 3,000 in the Berlin garrison. We have 10,000 West Germans in uniform as military auxiliaries, and we have 34,000 West German civilians


backing British troops. In other words, we have and we are paying for in Deutschmarks and foreign currency, over 100,000 men in Europe at this moment.

Mr. John Hall: When my right hon. Friend gives the figure for British forces does that include all the forces, or does it refer to the Army alone?

Mr. Watkinson: I made that plain. I said British Service men, and that includes B.A.O.R. and the Air Force and all British Service men, plus 3,000 in the Berlin garrison. In other words, a total of 63,000 Service men in Europe.
Despite the obvious difficulties with the change-over period from National Service to Regular forces we have held seven brigade groups in B.A.O.R.—

Mr. George Wigg: The right hon. Gentleman has touched on every figure except the one which really matters. Will he tell us what is the strength of B.A.O.R., excluding the forces in Berlin, so that we may form a judgment, or estimate, what is the gap between the existing B.O.A.R. and our original commitment of four divisions?

Mr. Watkinson: I have just said that despite the difficulties with our changeover, we have kept seven brigade groups. They are slightly under strength, I agree. I have never made any secret of that to SACEUR. The hon. Gentleman knows how many there are in the forces today—[Laughter.] There is no secret about that. The present figure lies between 51,000 and 52,000, against a total figure of 55,000—

Mr. G. Brown: What about the four divisions?

Mr. Watkinson: As the right hon. Gentleman knows very well, the four division figure is a figure that, with the agreement of SACEUR and W.E.U. was cancelled a long time ago—

Mr. Brown: Oh.

Mr. Watkinson: We were allowed a waiver—

Mr. Brown: That is a different matter.

Mr. Watkinson: The right hon. Gentleman can out it as he likes.
In addition, we specifically pledged ourselves in the White Paper—we cannot do it more plainly—in paragraph 15, that we will reinforce B.A.O.R. at any time and in a few days if we think that the situation in Berlin or anywhere else in Europe justifies it.
In August, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary set out clearly what we could or could not do in the face of the Berlin situation. He said that we would hold B.A.O.R. over the changeover year at its present level. Hence the Army Reserve Bill. I ask the Opposition how they can square their support for N.A.T.O. with their unreasoning opposition to this Bill, which was introduced because we felt that we must keep our N.A.T.O. obligations. It is a piece of political double-talk which will not impress anybody, much less N.A.T.O.
We are still reinforcing our forces in Germany on a plan agreed with the Commander-in-Chief, who has said that the main requirement there at the moment is anti-aircraft defence. For this reason we sent the first guided missile regiment and we are in process of sending two light anti-aircraft regiments; and we are forming a reserve division here at home allocated to N.A.T.O. Therefore, we have done our best to meet our N.A.T.O. obligations. Of course, SACLANT and SACEUR would like more. I have never met a commander who would not. But they knew of the difficulties we were bound to experience in this changeover from National Service men to Regular soldiers. That is clearly understood.
We also have a case to plead and this again is based on the W.E.U. Treaty. N.A.T.O., after an impartial examination of our foreign exchange burden, has said—this is what N.A.T.O. has said and not the British Government—that Britain bears a heavier burden in foreign exchange terms than any other member of the alliance. N.A.T.O. has said that it should do something about this, and we are grateful to Dr. Stikker and N.A.T.O. for the efforts which have been made to meet this situation, which, it is recognised, is placing a heavy and onerous burden upon us. That is why I quoted the total number of men we are keeping in Germany. That is the total number for which we have to pay.
I have to report to the House that no complete solution of this problem is yet in sight. In the meantime, we have kept our side of the bargain and, as I say, if things turn ugly, we will reinforce and be there as we have always been in the past. As a further proof of this I wish to announce that the Government have now agreed that plans should be prepared to hold a mobilisation exercise in September, 1962. This is known to N.A.T.O. It will be linked with regular N.A.T.O. exercises and it will test to the full the mobilisation arrangements of the Territorial Army, following its recent reorganisation.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War will be saying more about this when he introduces his Estimate later in the week. It will certainly involve a number of territorial units mustering in the United Kingdom and some going overseas. This is to show how quickly we could reinforce, and we would reinforce if the situation made it necessary.
As I have said, we are doing our best to be what we aim to be, a good N.A.T.O. ally. We must await the outcome of the N.A.T.O. exercise on our costs, but I must make it plain that we must face the sort of questions I shall now put to the House. Are the Communist Powers most likely to launch an all-out attack where they know that the West is strongest? Is not the nuclear weapon after all still the main deterrent to war in Europe? Would it strengthen N.A.T.O. to weaken the British economy by a massive call-up of reserves before they are absolutely necessary? Is it not just as important to strengthen N.A.T.O.'s air forces and modernise its weapons as to build up its numbers? We must try to strike the right balance in these admittedly very difficult problems. We shall do our very best to do that.
I want to deal with the question of weapons and equipment. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation will deal with this in detail tomorrow, but I say a word or two now from the user's point of view. What the forces need are weapons which fit current defence policy. Perhaps this might be some offset to the usual bout of self-denigration every British weapon seems to go

through. I am sure that our enemies must enjoy the sight of the British running themselves down in these matters.
The best test is the judgment of other nations. For example, I do not think that Sweden, Switzerland and Australia would have bought the Bloodhound if they had not thought it the best surface-to-air missile, or that West Germany and Sweden would have bought the Seacat missile if they did not think it the best weapon. Our new "Hampshire" destroyers, as they come into service, are the most advanced guided missile ships in any navy. I wish that when I was a naval gunnery officer we had been able to count on 90 per cent. hits on aircraft targets. The Chieftan tank is the best of its class in the world.
I turn to two examples of interdependence where Britain leads the world, the Rolls-Royce plastic lift engine and the Hawker P1127, the first V.T.O. fighter. I said last year how much importance should be attached to interdependence as an essential part of British defence policy. These two agreements with France, the United States and West Germany, plus the increasing sales of British 105 tank guns and aeroengines are a practical start to interdependence. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will make it plain that this is not a part of Government policy which he is anxious to censure. It is the best way of strengthening N.A.T.O. I hope he agrees with that.
We intend to press on with interdependence in tactics and training, perhaps the best and only long-term way of giving N.A.T.O. the kind of strength and forces it needs. I do not restrict this to weapons. We gained a great deal in the past twelve months from Anglo-German and Anglo-French staff talks. This year's programme will include American units visiting the Hebrides and there may be other visits. As the German visit to Castlemartin went off so well last year—although it was not much helped by the Opposition [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—the West German authorities are to use the range from June to October this year. We also welcome the interchange of paratroops with the French.
To sum up. We have set out the evolutionary stages for British defence


policy, not only of the 1960s but of the 1970s. Although we call it "evolution," in my view it has a great many revolutionary aspects. This policy will give us a powerful, well-equipped joint Service defence force under unified command which will be fully capable of making
our contribution to the defence of the free world and prevention of war
wherever or however we may be called upon to make it. In this fantastically dangerous world, a Minister of Defence, if he is to live with his conscience, must be able to say where he stands. Where I stand, with all the knowledge and advice available to me, is on what I believe to be the right policy for our country over these future years. It is set out in the White Paper and I commend it to the House.

4.35 p.m.

Mr. Gordon Walker: I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
has no confidence that the policy as set out in the Statement on Defence, 1962 (Command Paper No. 1639), will provide effectively for the defence of Britain.
I thought that the Minister of Defence, whom I thank for his opening kind words, was rather on the defensive in his speech today. I have sympathy with him. Although I do not think that he likes it, he is still caught in the toils of the turn that was given to our defence policy in 1957.
That was a policy which the Prime Minister thought up, which he put the present Commonwealth Secretary into office to carry out when Lord Head found that he could not stomach the job. The then Defence Minister, now Secretary of State for Commonwealth Affairs, rather complacently described the White Paper of 1957 as the biggest change in defence policy ever made in normal times. It certainly was the biggest change; it was a baneful and disastrous change from which we have not yet escaped. It committed us to a perilous nuclear strategy in Europe and led us to starving and stunting our conventional forces.
The present Commonweath Secretary asked them for five years for his plans to develop and those five years have now elapsed. The result upon our forces was

set out in sober, factual words by the defence correspondent of The Times on 14th September last. This is what he wrote when describing the present state of our Army five years after the 1957 White Paper:
In 1963, many of the Army's 60 battalions of infantry will be at very low strength, … Some Royal Artillery regiments will be similarly weak, and the Royal Corps of Signals will be unable to supply all the communications upon which the present organisation and deployment depends. There will be shortages of drivers, and non-specialist doctors and medical orderlies, probably brave enough to restrict the employment of formations in battle. The overall picture is one of an Army of weak units.
That is what we have got for the £16,000 million that has been spent in the ten years under this Government.
The present Minister of Defence, in his White Paper, has some scattered sentences which could be read as a repudiation of the policy of the 1957 White Paper. He described it as a clear and incisive White Paper, yet it seems to me to come in a muddle-headed way to much the same conclusions as the present Commonwealth Secretary did. As The Times said today, this is
not so much a statement of new policy as an attempt to put a new face on an old one.
This is fundamentally why we reject the White Paper. It has its priorities wildly awry and in some ways they are worse now than they have been in the past.
The doctrine on which the White Paper is based is still the same as that in 1957 as regards Europe, namely, that only a nuclear war is conceivable. This comes out in paragraphs 7 and 9 and elsewhere. Like the Commonwealth Secretary, the idea of the present Minister is that it will be all or nothing. This was borne out by the speech of the Minister today. The Government think of nothing but a major war in Europe which would rapidly become a nuclear war. They make no provision for, nor even consider, any lesser challenge than a major war.
They therefore conclude, logically, that the nuclear deterrent is all that matters and that conventional forces in Europe do not matter very much. That underlies what I think is the main theme of the White Paper, which is to play down N.A.T.O. and to play up commitments anywhere else in the world. I do not believe that any other White


Paper we have ever had has so deliberately set out to depreciate N.A.T.O. There are only a few scattered references to it, every one of them qualified. N.A.T.O. is not even mentioned in the three basic priorities set out in paragraph 3 and three times in the White Paper it is lumped together with S.E.A.T.O. and CENTO. Indeed, the right hon. Gentleman said that we are equally committed to all three alliances. There is obviously an attempt by the Government to suggest that our commitment to these three alliances is a similar kind of commitment.
But this is, of course, quite false. These are not similar alliances or organisations. S.E.A.T.O. and CENTO are organisations in which there are no committed forces but into which the allies undertake to throw forces from outside if necessary. That is the idea which the Government are beginning to develop about N.A.T.O., and that is why they constantly put N.A.T.O. together with CENTO and S.E.A.T.O. as if they were the same sort of alliance when, in fact, fundamentally, they are different.
This tendentious putting together of N.A.T.O. with CENTO and S.E.A.T.O. shows what is the Government's idea of N.A.T.O.—to keep the smallest possible number of troops on the ground and to have the capacity to put them in from outside, just as with S.E.A.T.O. and CENTO. This is already being applied to N.A.T.O., as the right hon. Gentleman told us, for the 3rd Division is back in the United Kingdom earmarked, we are told, for N.A.T.O.—we are not sure how heavily earmarked it is—with its heavy equipment in Germany.
It is a good thing, always, to have reserves in any military undertaking, but in the present circumstances it seems to me military madness to constitute our reserve by taking essential troops out of the front line; for that is what the Government and the Minister of Defence have done. As The Times said in a leading article today:
To suggest that a division on Salisbury Plain is as good as one on the Elbe"—
and that is the Government's idea—
is to misrepresent the whole point of the N.A.T.O. strategy.
That is absolutely right, and we wholly agree with it.
What is even more disturbing in the White Paper is that it creates the impression that the Government are preparing for further reductions in our troops in Europe. There are widespread fears in Europe, in S.H.A.P.E. and elsewhere on this point. The Economist said, on 24th February:
There is a growing European belief that Mr. Watkinson wants to have 15,000–20,000 more troops in strategic reserve to cover his manpower liabilities elsewhere.
Certainly, a reading of the White Paper gives food for these suspicions in Europe and amongst our allies. I do not think that anybody in Europe will be fooled by the right hon. Gentleman's arithmetic, which makes it out that we have 100,000 troops committed in N.A.T.O. He said that we pay for 100,000 troops who are vital to defence.

Mr. Watkinson: Because I intended to deal with the argument about overseas costs and foreign exchange, I made it plain how many men we were paying for in Germany.

Mr. Gordon Walker: I am glad that that has been amended. It is not quite as I heard it originally. But I will let that go, for it is not important to the argument.
People in Europe has seen us pledge originally, in October, 1954, by treaty, to keep four divisions in Europe. Sir Anthony Eden, as he was then, said that this was a committed treaty pledge and that it would last until the end of the century. In 1958, it was cut down to seven brigade groups, nominally 55,000 men, but, in fact, I believe, never more at any time than 51,000 men. We have never even kept the pledge which we made in 1958. In this White Paper they see the pledge whittled down to one of keeping adequate forces—which is adequate forces as the right hon. Gentleman may at any time interpret that need. The Times said today, it is
a perfunctory nod
towards our obligations to N.A.T.O.
Even this pledge of adequate forces binds us, according to the White Paper, only as far as we can see into the present decade. What does this mean—
As far as one can see into the present decade"?
Does it mean a pledge to keep adequate forces—undefined—in Europe for three


years or five years or seven years? How far does the right hon. Gentleman think that he can see into the next decade? This is very different from a pledge to keep four divisions in Europe to the end of the century.
These doubts in Europe about our intentions will certainly be fed by the key passage in paragraph 15 of the White Paper. It reads:
During this period"—
which means until some date in this decade—
the proportion of these forces to be stationed on the mainland of Europe and in Britain respectively must depend to a large extent on the balance of payments position.
That will be read, indeed has been read, in S.H.A.P.E. and elswhere in Europe as a preparation for a further withdrawal of men. I hope that this will be categorically denied when the Minister of Aviation replies to the debate.
There is, of course, something in the balance of payments argument. N.A.T.O. has admitted it. We are bearing a special burden, and it ought to be shared. But it is exaggerated. Now that sterling is convertible, the maintenance of any British troops anywhere outside this country involves considerable payments across the exchanges. That is not mentioned in the White Paper, but on no fewer than three occasions the problem is mentioned in connection with N.A.T.O. Three times the right hon. Gentleman felt that he had to bring this point into quite a short White Paper.
We can press this balance of payments argument with some hope of success only if we carry conviction in Europe that we intend to carry out our pledges to keep men there. People in Europe today are saying—one hears it in S.H.A.P.E. and elsewhere—"The British are determined to reduce their forces, anyway. If it were not for the balance of payments they would find some other reason. Why, therefore, should we solve their balance of payments problem for them?" We must carry conviction that we shall meet our commitments, in a way in which the Government and the right hon. Gentleman have not succeeded in carrying conviction, before we can hope to press this balance of payments argument, which has weight in it, with success.
The Government's policy of relying on nuclear weapons for Germany and of

keeping very thin British forces there, keeping men back in this country, will have very grave consequences. One is that it will lead to the military dominance of Germany. This will be an inevitable consequence if our forces become both absolutely and relatively very small, even insignificant, in the army of S.H.A.P.E.
The most grave consequence is that these forces, so thin on the ground, are appallingly dependent on the use of tactical nuclear weapons. They are so thin on the ground that they would have to make an immediate call for the use of tactical nuclear weapons even for a minor Russian conventional challenge, even for a trouble which started by accident. This is so universally supported now by evidence from all observers that it can hardly be challenged, but it is borne out very strikingly in a sentence from the Memorandum to the Air Estimates.
The paragraph is headed, "Royal Air Force, Germany". It is paragraph 46, and it reads:
The Canberra Squadrons have achieved a high state of proficiency in their primary rôle of low-level nuclear attack. They are also trained in the conventional interdiction role. …
That is an almost casual admission that the normal thought of the Government is that there should be tactical nuclear weapons always ready in Germany and that conventional weapons are only a secondary afterthought.

Mr. Watkinson: I know that the right hon. Gentleman accepts, but I hope that he will say so, that our air and ground forces carry out exactly the doctrine which SACEUR imposes on them. That is what they are doing.

Mr. Gordon Walker: I agree, but the Government give SACEUR very little choice. They have our troops so thin on the ground that it is impossible for them to carry out their duties in N.A.T.O. without this great over-dependence upon nuclear weapons. If there are so few troops there that that is the only way they can defend themselves, that is what SACEUR will order, but he does not want to and he has made that very clear. It is no secret that the Government have refused his request to bring our seven brigade groups up to 90 per cent. strength. He does not want


to be dependent upon tactical nuclear weapons in this way, but, because the Government will not meet his requests, he has no choice but to give these orders.

Mr. John Hall: Does the right hon. Gentleman believe that, with the disparity in the number of troops which can be deployed by Russia and her allies against even the maximum number that would be called for under the M.C.70 plan, N.A.T.O. forces could meet them without the use of tactical nuclear weapons?

Mr. Gordon Walker: I am coming to that. I have not said that. I said over-dependence upon tactical nuclear weapons. I will come in a moment to the question of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe. I shall try not to dodge any of the difficult issues.
This over-reliance on tactical nuclear weapons in Europe flies flat in the face of all present military, scientific and political thought on the subject. There was the article by Sir Solly Zuckerman in Foreign Affairs, published recently with the authority of SACEUR. It is supported by other writers, like Henry Kissinger and others. Tactical nuclear weapons are so horrible and would cause such immense damage that it is no longer a question of the danger of escalation; tactical nuclear warfare would already be full nuclear warfare, directly it was resorted to.
This doctrine of the Government, on which their White Paper rests, is in flat contradiction with the strategic doctrine now being urged by S.H.A.P.E. and by the United States. Part of the right hon. Gentleman's speech today was really an answer to General Norstad's known view that we ought to commit more men today to S.H.A.P.E. We are in complete conflict now with the United States, with S.H.A.P.E., and with nearly all military and political thinking in the doctrine to which we still stick.
The United States has been engaged on a really very courageous recasting of its whole strategic thought in order to find an alternative to the repellant doctrine of massive retaliation. President Kennedy has himself led and initiated this. As he says, he wants another choice other than between humiliation and a

holocaust. He must have a means of meeting at any appropriate level attacks which might come from Russia on any scale, including non-nuclear attacks met by non-nuclear forces. This is the so-called doctrine of the pause. If a non-nuclear attack or any challenge of this kind which might be made can be met by non-nuclear or conventional weapons at the proper level, a pause can be imposed during which there is time for thought to be taken before the world is plunged into destruction.
This doctrine is based on the idea that if a country relies, as we do, on tactical nuclear weapons so much, and if it has such inadequate conventional forces on the ground, then a situation is created which would tempt Russia to face us with a fait accompli, not necessarily a very large one. Then we would be faced with the choice either of accepting it, in which case N.A.T.O., if this happened once or twice, would wither and crumble away; or of responding to it by a war to save Europe, which would destroy Europe.
That is the idea underlying the new Doctrine of General Norstad, Mr. McNamara and President Kennedy—that there must be men on the ground in order to get away from this horrible dilemma. I accept that we must have tactical weapons in Europe as long as Russia or the Communist bloc has them. They are part of the Western deterrent. We certainly cannot have our men out there at the absolute mercy of a possible enemy. But we must also escape from this perilous dependence upon them.
We must get ourselves into a position when we, by which I mean all of us, the whole of the West, need never be the first to use any nuclear weapon, tactical or strategic. But there must be more men on the ground—not on Salisbury Plain, and not as "Ever-readies" able to fill up gaps. There must be men on the ground if we are to escape from a perilous dependence—an over-reliance—upon tactical nuclear weapons.
We are strongly against this part of the White Paper. Obviously, our Amendment is in this sense selective. We are not against the entire forces of the Crown. We are against this part of the White Paper, because we totally disagree with the Government's policy towards N.A.T.O. We demand that there


shall not be further withdrawal. We demand an assurance today that this is not the intention, as it appears to be, of the White Paper. We demand that we should at least keep our seven brigade groups there. We should bring them, as General Norstad has asked, up to 90 per cent. strength as soon as we possibly can. We should reorganise and plan continuously with a view to strengthening our forces in Germany.
I want now to discuss another matter where I think that the Government have also got their priorities wrong. This is their determination, which was briefly restated by the Minister of Defence, at all costs and indefinitely to remain an independent nuclear power. It is our established policy on this side of the House, on grounds of cost and use of resources, that Britain should cease the attempt to remain an independent nuclear power. The right hon. Gentleman asked me some questions and I am just giving the answers to one or two of them.
We do not say—we never have said—that we should throw our existing weapons and means of carrying them into the sea. But each year the bombers that are the carriers of our weapons are becoming more obsolescent. Now they are becoming rather obsolescent. Therefore, the question must arise whether the attempt to extend our possession of an independent nuclear weapon is not so costly and so elaborate that it really amounts to a new attempt to remain an independent nuclear power. There comes a point when an attempt to extend our existing weapons is tantamount to trying to equip ourselves with new weapons in order to continue, as we do not think we should, as an independent nuclear power.

Brigadier Sir Otho Prior-Palmer: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman what is honestly a question of clarification? I do not understand what the Opposition mean by the phrase "independent nuclear weapon". The V-bomber force is entirely and absolutely integrated with the American strategic striking force, under one American commander. Where does the independence come in?

Mr. Gordon Walker: The hon. and gallant Member should attack his own side on this. It is the Government who

talk about the independent nuclear deterrent. They say that our deterrent alone is enough to deter the whole of Russia and all the rest. He had better direct his attacks, not on me, but on his right hon. Friend.
The expense of doing what the Government want to do will be enormous. The Government's plans are based on a number of rather hazardous gambles. The first step, as we all know, is to equip our bombers with Blue Steel. The cost of this is rising astronomically. The original estimate was £12½ million. By September, 1960, it was £60 million. The Guardian of 21st February said that it is likely to cost not far short of £150 million. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will be able to give us some idea of what he now expects the end cost to be. This is disturbingly similar in pattern to what happened with Blue Streak. The same official doubts are beginning to creep in here as we experienced in that case.
This comes out in the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General in the Civil Appropriations Account. Witnesses from the right hon. Gentleman's Ministry said this to the Comptroller and Auditor General:
However, should the project"—
that is, Blue Steel—
not be brought to an effective conclusion within the period considered reasonable by the Ministry, they would have to consider what further action should be taken.
This is a statement by the Ministry of Defence, on the Minister's own authority, and he really ought to tell us what it means. What does "further action now being contemplated" mean? What is the present estimated cost of Blue Steel? We have the right to know these things. There is a tremendous amount of public money at stake, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will be able to answer these relatively simple questions.
The second stage is Skybolt. I know that the Americans are spending a lot of money on it themselves. They want to extend the life of their own bombers, but they have alternatives if anything should go wrong. The Government are tied to Skybolt and one hopes that it will turn out all right. But there must be doubts about any weapons not yet in production. This overtook us in Blue Streak, too. Costs of Skybolt are also shooting


up. The original estimate was 120 million dollars and it is now 450 million dollars—about £160 million. There has been a tremendous rise in the cost of these weapons. What will happen if we are to continue with this attempt to remain an independent nuclear Power? The White Paper only talks about the end of the 1960s and the right hon. Gentleman used the phrase, "So long as we can afford it". But we must look further ahead. What are the next prospects? Skybolt II and new bombers to carry it? The costs already involved—the costs that open up—are extremely great.
We do not believe that, apart from the cost, this really strengthens the alliance, as the Government always claim it does. We represent about 2½ per cent. of the Western deterrent. This is, of course, and must be, vulnerable, but I do not believe that it has anything like as great a power as a second strike weapon—which is the only way in which it could be used—as the Government claim. In any case, this percentage is bound to diminish as American expenditure continues to outstrip ours.
The rate of expansion of American research and production is absolutely fantastic. The increase last year in American expenditure on production and research was greater than our total expenditure for the same period. The increase in American expenditure was £875 million and our total was about £700 million. At this rate the proportion that we can contribute to the Western deterrent—I am talking about cost and the proper use of our resources—will become an ever-smaller proportion.
I do not believe that the Government are right in thinking that this very considerable expenditure increases our influence in the world. I believe that our nuclear contribution to the West is a relatively small factor and does not really enter very seriously into the calculations of our allies. On the other hand, if we had really good mobile and well-equipped conventional forces they would be an indispensable contribution to the West and would give us correspondingly much greater influence. Therefore, I argue this case both on grounds of the general deployment of our resources and of the political influence

which it would bring us in the world.
We should now take a firm decision not to go in indefinitely trying to remain an independent nuclear Power. This would mean that we should have to take a firm decision to let our nuclear weapons taper off as they became obsolescent, and we say that it would now be wise to take a firm decision along this line.

Sir Arthur Vere Harvey: The right hon. Gentleman has been suggesting that we should discard our V2 bombers as they wear out each year. If he honestly thinks that this is the right policy, would it not be more honest to scrap the whole lot now and face up to the issue?

Mr. Gordon Walker: I really do not know the facts. [Laughter.] The Opposition cannot possibly know the facts on which a decision of this kind has to be based. We can only say what we responsibility can on the known facts of the costs involved, and on our calculations of the advantages and disadvantages. This is why we say, that this firm decision should be taken. But only the Government are in a position—hon. and gallant Gentlemen opposite do not know this, either—to decide the time and scale of the cut-off and all the rest. But one should make a firm decision to bring this attempt to remain an independent nuclear Power—

Mr. Sydney Silverman: Will my right hon. Friend allow me to interrupt him?

Mr. Gordon Walker: No, I think I will not. I have given way a very great deal.

Mr. Silverman: Given his case away.

Mr. Gordon Walker: I am always very grateful for the readiness which my hon. Friend invariably shows to support us on the Opposition Front Bench.
It follows, of course, that it was a mistake to conduct these tests in Nevada, because, as the right hon. Gentleman said, they were part of our attempt to continue to remain an independent nuclear Power. The tests were a small matter and not very important, but they must have cost a


great deal, and we think that it was an error to have engaged in them.
Our expenditure on retaining our nuclear weapons represents a very considerable sum of money—the Government say that it represents only 10 per cent.—but this amounts to a very large sum that could be better spent in other branches of defence.
We cannot have defence on the cheap. Equipping our conventional forces will be very expensive. I do not think that the money which could be saved by gradually tapering off the nuclear weapons will be able to be used except for strengthening our conventional forces. I do not think that we need conscription. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman in this. Our allies in Europe keep their major forces at home, which is easier for them. I still do not believe that the conscript armies which they maintain are as efficient as Regular armies. But we need fundamental changes in the organisation of the equipment of our forces if we are to meet the prime aim, which is to get more men on the ground in Germany. That still remains the prime requirement which the Government are failing to achieve.
In the White Paper the Government make some leisurely and tentative approaches in the right direction, but they are going at a pace which we cannot afford. We cannot continue with our present shortage of men. We must give a hard look at our commitments. Of each, we must ask: what is it for? We cannot keep even small numbers of men in bases and garrisons which are not absolutely strategically relevant. I cannot see the relevance of bases or garrisons in the Mediterranean. The U.S. Sixth Fleet is the real power there. The Arab air barrier, about which the right hon. Gentleman spoke, stops movement eastwards. Troops could be reduced in Cyprus and other Mediterranean garrisons.
I cannot see the strategic relevance of troops in Hong Kong. We are told that it is now for internal security. This, of course, is a proper task, but British soldiers are far too precious today to be used as policemen. Our normal way, where local security is needed to be protected, is to train a local gendarmerie to

do that work. We could call on Australia, which has an interest in this part of the world, to help.
In the Indian Ocean where our commitments must still continue, we must realise that land bases in newly independent countries are not long tenable. This is a lesson which we have learned at great expense and at tremendous loss in Suez, and Cyprus; and now, apparently, Kenya is to be given up. The White Paper—it was not so true of the right hon. Gentleman's speech—is too optimistic about Singapore and Aden. We must move towards a final tenable strategy. In the end, we shall have to have a base in Australia and mobile task forces. This will be very expensive, and this is one reason why I think that our money can be better spent than it is being spent on the nuclear deterrent, and so forth. But in the end it will save manpower, because it will give us very great mobility.
We need, of course, more mobility for our strategic reserve in the United Kingdom. Progress here is still desperately slow. I am glad that the Comet IV is entering service, but we are still using the same language as we used in 1957. We are still dependent very largely on the Britannia—side loading, and awkward to handle—and the Beverley, which lacks lift and range. Perhaps the Minister of Aviation could tell us when the Belfast is to come on. Could he also say what has happened to the OR351, which was to be the successor to the Beverley?
I turn now to the Western nuclear deterrent and the tests that President Kennedy has decided to make. As I have said, we on this side take our attitude to the British deterrent on grounds of cost, use of resources, and the effect on our alliance and our influence in the world. We accept without question that there should be a deterrent in the Western Alliance, and that there should be a balance of deterrence to prevent the outbreak of war in the world.
We quite agree that if that balance were disturbed the danger of war would be increased. Therefore, if the balance is upset, the West has a duty, as well as a right, to restore it. At the same time, we absolutely abhor these atmospheric tests that poison the atmosphere and


could start a great new arms race. We are against them unless they are absolutely necessary, and we want no test to be made until there has been a real chance of talks at Geneva.
President Kennedy, as far as he can tell the public, has made out the case on military grounds. I was very much impressed by his obvious reluctance to test; by his determination not to test for political or prestige reasons. I was also impressed by the way in which he did not over-play the advances the Russians may have made. They have made advances. The important point is that if they were able to analyse for some years what they have done in these tests and then started another series they really might get very far ahead. That is something that the Western Alliance clearly cannot allow. I therefore think that President Kennedy's line is right, and can be justified. It has, indeed, produced, as far as one can see, the very hopeful result that Russia will send its Foreign Minister to Geneva to talk with the other Foreign Ministers.
It is desperately necessary that these horrible tests should not take place; indeed, that they should cease altogether. The West must, therefore, approach these talks with a real desire to achieve success. After all, the immediate aim is not a universal ban on everything, but a ban on atmospheric tests. There must be an adequate control system—the Russians did secretly prepare their tests in the middle of talks—but there does not have to be the complex, absolutely water-tight control that would be needed if we were getting a general armaments or nuclear control.
Obviously, if an agreed test ban were again to be broken by the Russians it would be the end to any attempt to get any kind of self-policing or self-detecting system of control—

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Now that the right hon. Gentleman is speaking about tests, does he agree with what he said in Reynolds News on 24th December, that, on ethical grounds, the resumption by the West of atmospheric testing was quite indefensible?

Mr. Gordon Walker: That was said, if I did say it—I cannot remember—at a time when it was generally assumed that the Russians had not made

any progress at all technically, and were doing this for prestige reasons, which would be a horrible thing. Since then, it has been established that they have made considerable military progress, and there is the danger that if the Russians repeated those tests they would—there is no question of it—destroy this balance, and it would have to be restored.
The hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) is a unilateralist; I am a multilateralist. I believe that there must be only all-round controlled disarmament. I believe, standing here now, that if the balance is upset by one side, it must be restored by the other. If the Americans got ahead, the balance would be restored by Russia, too. That is clear to both sides in this business. I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. There is a great gulf between us, and we cannot be brought together—

Mr. Emrys Hughes: It is the right hon. Gentleman's own statement.

Mr. Gordon Walker: If I said it, I did so, as I have explained, on the assumptions that were then generally made that the Russians had not made any serious military advance as a result of their tests.
As my right hon. Friend said, if very real progress is made in Geneva, but only on that condition, I hope it will be possible that the tests can be postponed a little. I emphasise the word "if"; I do not want those talks to become another great propaganda forum, or a cover for secret preparations to test. But, if real progress is made, there will be a very strong case, which we urge on the Government, for the Government to use their influence to get further postponement of the American tests.
The country—the whole world—needs a real break-through on the road to disarmament. I believe that the fundamental and underlying developments are hopeful. Nuclear weapons are unique: they are different in kind from anything in the history of warfare. And they are bringing a correspondingly unique change in the mind of humanity. Human beings and their leaders are, for the first time in all their history, now beginning to regard major war as unthinkable. That has never been the case in


all our long history, but it is beginning to be the case.
Her Majesty's Government must, therefore, strive with all their might and main to bring about success in these talks. We will fully support them in everything that they do in that direction. Success may provide the breakthrough which will enable mankind, for the first time in its blood-stained history, to get down to the real task, of which it has dreamed in the past, of abolishing war and the instruments of war.

5.17 p.m.

Mr. Aubrey Jones: The right hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker) has the advantage over some of us that he speaks on an unchanged subject with a fresh voice. Others of us run the risk of repeating ourselves, but I shall try to avoid that danger as best I can. I find myself in substantial agreement with his broad conclusions, but there are one or two in which I differ from him. I also differ from him in one or two of his interpretations of the White Paper, but I hope that my areas of agreement and disagreement will become clear as I go on.
There are two questions which I should like to ask on the White Paper. The first is: does it square with the country's foreign policy objectives? The second is: does it square with the goal of economy? I take it that it is the search for economy which very largely explains the shap6 of our present defence policy.
Does our defence policy square with our foreign policy? The traditional purpose of a defence policy is to sustain a foreign policy, and it is probably the case that in these days, when defence may be a rather meaningless concept—in certain circumstances, after all defence is tantamount to national suicide—this trite saying that the purpose of a defence policy is to sustain foreign policy is probably truer than ever.
What are, or ought to be, the diplomatic objectives of this country? I see the present international situation rather like this. The Soviet Union is engaged in a contest for men's minds and, rightly or wrongly, it is convinced that it will win that contest. We should not underrate its chances of success. New

countries, for instance, anxious to industrialise themselves and accumulate capital, may see the compulsory methods of the Soviet Union as something much more suited to this end than are our freer methods; but, be that as it may, a country that is convinced that it will win the struggle for men's minds has no need to unleash a great offensive war against the West. It is in keeping with this that growing evidence shows that the main emphasis of the Soviet's weapons effort is on defence rather than on offence. Witness for instance the tremendous investment in anti-air defence. It may well, indeed, be that it is this very preoccupation with defence which may have led the Soviet Union to stumble upon some kind of anti-missile device. I do not know; that is a matter of speculation, but nevertheless I think the main effort to be defensive.
We in the West, on the other hand, I suggest, seeing the Soviet Union eager to capture men's minds, have tended to identify this with a military purpose, and we have tried to meet what we regard as a military purpose by building up what everyone must acknowledge, and what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister earlier this afternoon acknowledged, to be a substantial nuclear offensive superiority vis-à-vis the Soviet Union. This I take it now to be an unchallengable fact: It is my view that in seeking an offensive nuclear superiority to this extent, we have suffered in two ways. I believe that this has distracted us from the real nature of the struggle with the Soviet Union, the capture of men's minds, and, for that reason, I believe that it may have disabled us in meeting the Soviet Union in that struggle; secondly, it has had, I think, a distorting effect upon the Soviet Union. What we have seen as essentially defensive measures, they have seen as concealing offensive intent. That is my broad assessment of the international situation.
The British objective, the rôle of this country in this situation, if I am right, should, I think, be twofold: first, to keep before the West the real nature of the struggle with the Soviet Union, the struggle for men's minds; and, secondly, in this process of reciprocal distortion which the Soviet Union and the West have had upon each other, to play a moderating part. I think that very few


hon. Members would care to disagree with this statement of the objectives of a British foreign policy. I take it that these have in fact been the objectives which the Prime Minister has endeavoured to follow.
This to my mind is the real importance of disarmament. The question which I should like to ask is: does the defensive policy that we have pursued and repeated in the present White Paper square with these objectives? I should like to look at the two aspects mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Smethwick—first the British deterrent and, secondly, our policy towards Europe.
First the deterrent. So far as the Soviet Union is concerned I do not believe that the British deterrent makes one iota of difference. It clearly has no mollifying effect on the Soviet Union, but equally it has no intimidating effect either, because we are not identified in Soviet eyes with aggression. In Soviet eyes the two potentially aggressor Powers are the United States and Western Germany.
What, then, of the United States? Does our deterrent enable us to exercise an influence over the United States? I believe that at one time that was true. I no longer believe that it is true. I believe that the deterrent is the one thing which enables this country to lay claim to a continuance of the special relationship with the United States which we founded in the war. I think that the claim for this special relationship is wearing increasingly thin. Other allies of the United States have now come into being, equally powerful with ourselves, Western Germany, for instance, and that we of all allies of the United States should be singled out for nuclear secrets, for special treatment, is increasingly a source of embarrassment and discomfort to the United States and therefore, I believe, an increasing source of estrangement between us and the United States.
The British deterrent is certainly, I think, a cause of estrangement between us and the European Continent. If we have the deterrent, France wants the deterrent. If France has the deterrent, there is a danger that Germany may have the deterrent; and, to stop Western Germany from having the deterrent,

there is increasing talk of a N.A.T.O. deterrent.
Indeed, I believe that the N.A.T.O. deterrent may increasingly be an American objective. Judging from my reading of the Press, I take it that the Government are opposed to a N.A.T.O. deterrent, and in this, for a variety of reasons, I believe them to be right. First, I believe that a N.A.T.O. deterrent would mean Western Germany's participation in the deterrent, and I think that this would be likely to inflame Soviet fears rather than assuage them. Secondly, I believe that a N.A.T.O. deterrent would encourage the illusion of European independence of the United States without in fact altering the basic reality that Europe is overwhelmingly dependent in nuclear matters on the United States. I do not like fictions at the best of times. I think that a fiction of this kind would be calculated to weaken the bonds of alliance rather than strengthen them.
The third and most important reason why I am against a N.A.T.O. deterrent is that we are about to start very important talks on disarmament. It seems to me quite inconsistent to start these talks and at the same time to proliferate the deterrent. We shall not have any success in the disarmament talks unless we have an atmosphere of détente. To establish a N.A.T.O. deterrent and so proliferate the deterrent would be, I believe, to run in quite the opposite direction. I think that it is very important to stop a N.A.T.O. deterrent. So far I think that I would be right in assuming that the Government would be with me. The Government equally do not want a N.A.T.O. deterrent. If that is so, I think that we have to go a step further. If we are all of us against a N.A.T.O. deterrent, then I think that we must be against the British deterrent because, after all, the claim and the agitation for a N.A.T.O. deterrent takes its origin in the British deterrent. I think that that logic is inescapable. Sooner or later we have to face it. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Smethwick that the deterrent is a decaying asset, and decaying assets are best given up sooner rather than later.

Sir A. V. Harvey: How can my right hon. Friend make that statement, quite sincerely I am sure, when he as Minister


of Supply ordered millions of pounds of equipment for aircraft which he is now saying we should give up? The two facts cannot be reconciled.

Mr. Jones: I do not think it entirely inconsistent. I genuinely believe that the British deterrent gave us at one time enhanced influence with the United States, but I believe that that has completely changed. I believe that the prospect of a N.A.T.O. deterrent also makes a considerable difference.

Mr. Anthony Kershaw: My right hon. Friend has given three reasons why there should not be a N.A.T.O. deterrent and has said that they apply equally to the British deterrent, but for quite different reasons from those that he was talking about previously. How does he reconcile the two statements?

Mr. Jones: The claim for a N.A.T.O. deterrent springs from a number of national deterrents, and the national deterrents in Europe have sprung from the British deterrent. I therefore have to face the logic, that if I am against the N.A.T.O. deterrent I must be against the British deterrent.
The right hon. Member for Smethwick said that he would taper off the V-bomber force and not equip it with standoff bombs. I would agree with that. But I think that I would go one step further. If the disarmament talks at Geneva were to achieve some success and if there were as a result some dismantling of delivery systems, then I would be prepared for the entire British delivery system to be dismantled. This admittedly is very difficult. But I ask the House to reflect that our history, and our colonial history in particular, is studded with examples of our having gained influence by surrendering a declining privilege earlier rather than later. I think that this is an exact parallel. I think that this is a case where, without in any way altering the military balance, we could surrender a privilege and increase our influence and our moderating power.
I turn now to the European question with which the right hon. Gentleman dealt at length. Once again I should like to ask about our attitude towards Europe: is it consistent with our foreign policy? One thing has emerged perfectly clearly from the White Paper, and that

is that our manpower policy—the reliance on voluntary recruitment—does not enable us to fulfil both our overseas commitments and our commitments in Europe.
The right hon. Gentleman asked for a further withdrawal from our overseas commitments. I am not going to join him in that. I recognise that while we are a declining Power, we are entangled with commitments from the past from which it is not easy to disembarrass ourselves. I am not prepared to upbraid the Government with not withdrawing quickly enough from overseas. But I agree with the right hon. Gentleman in what he said about Europe, and once again I ask: is it consistent with our foreign policy to adhere to a manpower policy which makes us short in Europe?
I should like to examine why we are involved in Europe. The White Paper, rather plaintively, I thought, talks of our increasing involvement in Europe. Why are we more and more involved in Europe? Is it desirable that we should be so involved?
Fundamentally, I think it is because the threat of replying to anything from the East with massive retaliation has become more and more unrealistic. There is a desire for a greater conventional readiness on the European Continent, but I would add this important qualification—a greater conventional readiness but not to a point of allowing the Russians to believe that we might want to unleash a conventional attack on the Soviet Union. [Interruption.] This is perfectly true. The thirty divisions under the revised M.C.70 plan are clearly a defensive measure. They do not constitute an offensive measure. I think that it is important not to give the appearance of intended offence.
We were asked by N.A.T.O. to make our contribution towards this increased conventional readiness, for two reasons—partly for its own sake, and partly as some offset to the German forces. Obviously, the broader the sector of the front which we occupy, the narrower the sector which the Germans occupy. No stationing of forces in this country in exchange for having them in Germany can deal with this problem.
The right hon. Member for Smethwick interpreted the White Paper as meaning


that we still saw nothing between total defencelessness and total retaliation. I differ from this interpretation and I would ask the House to note in particular paragraph 8, where this is written:
We must continue to make it clear to potential aggressors, however, that we should strike back with all the means that we judge appropriate, conventional or nuclear. If we had nothing but nuclear forces, this would not be credible. A balance must be maintained, therefore, between conventional and nuclear strength.
I take this as implying on the part of the Government a step forward in the acceptance of the N.A.T.O. doctrine; but, at the same time as we have this step forward, we have a step backwards in its application—a statement that henceforth our forces in Germany will depend upon our balance of payments position.
Is it wise to retreat in this way from the expectation of what we should do in Europe? The right hon. Gentleman was quite right; this is not the first time we have done it. In 1954 we signed the Brussels Treaty pledging ourselves to four divisions for an indefinite duration. Under the revised M.C.70 plan we are asked to supply to Western Germany three divisions. We applied for a reduction to seven brigade groups. What we are now doing is applying for a further reduction.
In other words, it seems to me that we are detaching ourselves increasingly in the military sense from Europe, at the very moment when we are trying to attach ourselves economically and politically to Europe. We have made an application for entry into the European Community. If I read the signs aright, there are two reasons why we did it. The first was that the Summit conference of 1960 showed that we had lost influence over the European countries. The second was that the coming of the Kennedy Administration showed that we were not going to have influence over the United States except through Europe. Is it consistent with the aim of increased influence over Europe and the United States thus to be retreating from our European obligations? I do not thank it is. Once again our defence policy seems to me to be at variance with our foreign policy.
Then I come to my last question. Is the defence plan, despite these inconsistencies

with the foreign policy, consistent with financial economy? After all, in our conduct of foreign policy we have to be economically strong. The shape of the defence policy of the last few years is that we reduce the number of men and compensate for this reduction by increased fire power and increased mobility. Is this really the way to economise? This is a field of great uncertainty, and the last thing I wish to do is to speak of this with any dogmatism. But I would express one or two doubts.
From this point of view I think the key to the White Paper is to be found in paragraph 9:
… we must maintain carefully balanced forces …
There is only one thing that that statement can mean, and that is that, though we may no longer be a great Power, we must still try to do more or less everything. I hope that that is not an unfair interpretation. It is the only interpretation that is borne out by some of the salient figures.
If we look at our defence expenditure, we see that it amounts to but one-tenth of American expenditure. Yet within this smaller total the relationship between some broad categories of expenditure and others is the same. For instance, the proportion of our expenditure on research and development of weapons to our expenditure on the supply of weapons is one-third. In the United States it is, again, one-third. There are, no doubt, some areas in which with one-tenth of the effort expended in the United States one can achieve results as effective as those obtained in the United States. But I suggest that those areas must be very few. Because of a low absolute level of our research and development expenditure trying to cover a broad field, I think the conclusion is inescapable that, as a result, much of our effort is ineffective.
What we have been trying to do in the last few years, if I may draw an analogy from industry, is this: we have been cutting down our output—that is, our manpower—and trying, none the less, to retain the same range of products and, relatively to that output, increasing our overheads. This is not the recipe for prosperity in an industrial company; nor is it a recipe for economy


in defence. And I suggest that this situation may get worse rather than better.
Consider, for example, mobility. What does "mobility" mean? It means that fewer and fewer forces are now available at any one point, and that to make them available in a moment of crisis or emergency there must be increased overheads behind them—aircraft, carriers, with all the research and development necessary, administrative overheads, and so on. Thus, the overheads increase in relation to the striking power to be applied. I question whether the full financial consequences of this policy could, at this juncture, have been worked out.

Sir John Maitland: Sir John Maitland (Horncastle)rose—

Mr. Jones: I venture to suggest that that when these consequences become apparent we shall shrink from them and our ability to fend for ourselves overseas will be less than now. Does my hon. Friend the Member for Horncastle (Sir J. Maitland) wish to intervene? If not, I was almost at the end of my remarks. I was suggesting that our defence policy is inconsistent with our foreign policy and I suggest—although I am not dogmatic about this—that it is inconsistent with the quest for economy which now governs its shape.
How does one explain these inconsistencies? My explanation is that our great national problem—our very grievous problem—is our adjustment to a diminished status in the world. That is a difficult thing to do, but in this painful process of adjustment our defence policy is still, to a large extent, determined by pressures from below—still reflecting the aims and ambitions of services which were relevant to an earlier point of time but which are now no longer realistic. Equally, in so far as our defence policy is inspired by a conception from above, I think that that conception is still confused. The conception appears to be that, although we are no longer a great Power, we can, at least, be a great little Power. I submit that the notion of a great little Power is chimerical and that the pursuit of this notion is calculated to accelerate and aggravate our "littleness". We all want to see increased influence overseas. The

key to this increased influence is the abandonment of our badges of differentiation, the deterrent and the volunteer force—and I suggest their abandonment sooner rather than later.

5.43 p.m.

Mr. F. J. Bellenger: No hon. Member listening to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Aubrey Jones) will doubt his sincerity or will fail to have been impressed by the cogency and logic of his case. The only doubt in my mind is that the right hon. Gentleman, who was one of the architects in his own Government of the independent nuclear deterrent, should have been able to maintain himself in Government for so long. Listening to his speech today it seemed—and I wish him no injustice—that he was in direct conflict with his Government. After all, paragraph 13 of the White Paper states:
Although the British effort in this field"—
and it is referring to the Western strategic deterrent—
is manifestly smaller than that of either the United States or the U.S.S.R., and although it consumes only about 10 per cent. of our defence resources, our contribution to the Western strategic deterrent remains significant
That is quite opposite to what I understood the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green to say. At the end of that paragraph the Government say:
The efficacy of our deterrent will therefore be maintained throughout the 1960s by using our V-bombers and fitting them with stand-off weapons, Blue Steel in the first instance and later Skybolt.
The right hon. Gentleman's concluding remarks seemed directly opposed to that policy. If so—and if I have not misunderstood him—he should at least abstain from voting tomorrow night on the Opposition Motion, if not on the substantive Motion concerning the White Paper.
The tone, indeed the substance, of our debates on defence is obviously set by the White Paper which the Minister introduces. Today's debate is no exception. The Minister commenced his speech with certain remarks which led me to the conclusion that there was some, if not double thinking, irresolute thinking on the part of the Government when they composed their White Paper.


Those who have participated in Government know that matters of this kind first of all go to the Defence Sub-committee of the Cabinet and are then dealt with by the Cabinet collectively. Presumably this White Paper bears the imprint of the Government's approval.
But, relatively speaking, a few moments after it was published the Minister told the House that he had agreed, on behalf of the Service Departments, to increases in Service pay—with which we all agree—and then, replying to a Question of mine, he said that the cost of that increase was not included in the White Paper. I urge hon. Members to consider what they would think of a Chancellor of the Exchequer who told the House, having got his Budget approved by the Cabinet, that while he proposed to do certain things regarding various taxes he was going to impose—and he slipped this in as an afterthought—an extra 1d. a pint on beer? To a large extent that is what the Minister of Defence is doing. He is asking hon. Members to accept a statement to the effect that we should not take his figures as being accurate but only as an approximation for, in due course, he will bring a Supplementary Estimate for the extra cost of the increased pay of the Forces.
That leads me to the conclusion that what the right hon. Gentleman really wants to convey to hon. Members about his White Paper is not the gospel truth. The House is entitled to know, on an occasion such as this and faced with a White Paper of this import, just what the Government are doing. We do not want the situation to arise that, just as an afterthought, the Government can say that they are going to do a little extra, however worthwhile that little extra may be. The reading of this and other White Papers makes me think that although they present a sort of important strategic peep-through, a tremendous amount of filling in, make believe or, if you like, platitudes, are left unexplained.
It is obvious that when composing a White Paper the Government cannot give away the whole secret to the world. We cannot afford the world to know all our strategic plans, all about our weapons and our services, and how we intend Co implement them. Nevertheless

this Government treats hon. Members in a similar way—and this illustration may appeal to married men—to wives telling their husbands that they want money to spend on clothes. A wife says to her husbnd, "Here is the bill", and the husband has to foot the bill, just as Parliament is asked to foot the bill on this occasion. But how often—those with a little experience know this—does the wife not say "Here are the bills", but says, "Here is an estimate of the bills, and I think it would be better if you gave me a dress allowance". The Government are saying to Parliament now, "Do not forget that you must foot the bill, a hefty bill, but it would be better if you passed the amount which we are asking for and left it to us to dress ourselves out in our Service Departments as we think fit".
That is not the right attitude to take towards Parliament. Throughout the ages, Parliament has been accused of neglecting to act as the watch-dog of the public purse. Although I do not put my argument on that level only in relation to the White Paper, I say in all seriousness that we should be given a little more information—apart from matters governed by considerations of security, which I quite understand—than has been given in the recent series of Defence White Papers.
The White Paper is a little like a Bill which comes before Parliament. On Second Reading, although we cover the ground generally and discuss what is not in the Bill, we often refer to the Clauses. I wish to refer here to what is, in effect, Clause 3 of the White Paper, which impinges to a certain extent on the question put in his opening remarks by the right hon. Member for Hall Green about what the overall strategy should be. Paragraph 3 of the White Paper states that
'' The basic objectives of Britain's defence policy will remain"—
and then there follow items (a), (b) and (c). Item (a) is:
to maintain the security of this country.
This is one of what I referred to as the platitudes of the White Paper. I should have preferred the position of (a) and (c) to be reversed, for (c) is
to make our contribution to the defence of the free world and the prevention of war in accordance with the arrangements which we have


with individual countries and under collective security treaties.
If objective (c) is carried out effectively, there will be no need for (a). We shall be as secure as a baby in its cot watched over by beneficent parents, the international treaties which, presumably, will implement the policy set out in (c).
In considering our overall strategy, we know that Communism has an offensive policy which constantly puts us on the defensive. The weakness of the position of the West is that, whereas the Communists have the initiative always, we have to react to that initiative rather than take the initiative ourselves. Anyone who has read, for example, Lord Alanbrooke's books on the strategy pursued by this country during the war, in co-operation, of course, with our allies, particularly the United States—though in that case not until after 1941 when the United States itself was attacked—will know that we had to look at the overall picture. This is what I suggest that the Ministry of Defence should do, and, not only that, it should inform the House in as simple language as possible about the way it is doing it.
I admit at once that there are important signs in this White Paper leading one to believe that the strategic picture which has been sketched only in bare outline in the White Paper is something which the Ministry is now paying attention to. Perhaps I should not refer so much to the Ministry of Defence as to the Service Ministries, because I do not believe that the Defence Ministry is operating as the Defence Ministry did under the right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) during the war. However, the Ministry is, I think, seized of the importance of certain things which hitherto it has not carried out.
For example, I turn to paragraph 24 which tells us that the Ministry has set up a new organisation in the Ministry of Defence,
a new Joint Service Staff … under a senior officer as director.
I do not know who the director is, but, presumably, that senior officer of the group will have considerable powers. The staff will report to the Chiefs of Staff and, presumably, the Chiefs of Staff will report to the Cabinet. I do not know what the machinery is, but one section of the White Paper tells us that

the Ministry of Defence will be responsible for operations. If the Ministry is responsible for carrying out operations, not merely for co-ordinating the three Services, presumably it ought to be equipped with the right staff for doing that. However, if one looks at the costs of the Ministry of Defence in relation to the costs of the other Service Ministries, one finds that a very small amount of money is allocated to the Ministry of Defence compared with what is allocated to the other Ministries, even taking into account the large sum of money—50 per cent., it is said—related to the pay and allowances of the troops.
On the evidence submitted to us, I am not convinced that the Ministry of Defence is anything more than a Ministry of co-operation for defence, a little more elaborate than what we had before the war, but, nevertheless, not fully equipped to carry out operations.

Mr. Wigg: The White Paper does not say that it will carry out operations. It says that the Ministry is charged with the execution of them. That is a little different, because it is the kind of thing which was done by the right hon. Member for Woodford during the war.

Mr. Bellenger: Exactly. I quite agree with my hon. Friend. He reinforces my argument. I was about to refer to an operation which was not mentioned today but which is the classic example of a serious operation engaged in by Britain since the last war. Of course, if one wishes to speak about operations generally, one has to go back to the war itself, and there are plenty of examples of how the Ministry of Defence operated then. But the Ministry of Defence during the war was really the Prime Minister of the day calling himself the Minister of Defence when he felt so inclined. Since the war, however, as one realises if one refers to theh White Paper setting up the Ministry of Defence, we expected something different.
I take the Suez operation as an example. I wish to refer not to the political misdemeanours of the Government then but to the military operation. If one refers to the dispatch of the commander-in-chief at the time, General Keightley, one sees there written down for the Staff College an examination in detail of how an operation should not


be carried out. Whether that was done by the Minister of Defence in those days or not, I do not know, but it certainly was not the way to win a war, and war it was. If we had carried out operations like that during the war, our position would have been very different from what it was in 1945 when, in conjunction with our allies and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, we could say to the world that Germany was utterly beaten and had unconditionally surrendered.
One of my criticisms of the White Paper is that the Ministry of Defence is not operating in the way originally envisaged or in the way we are entitled to see it operating, bearing in mind that the words I have quoted—words which my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) has endorsed—make it responsible for executing operations.
I am pleased to see in the White Paper the passage concerning co-operation between the Services on an inter-Service basis. I shall not go into detail about the military purpose of such co-operation, but much more could be done about integrating the Services in static areas. The Minister referred to what has been done by what he called "service agencies", and I believe that, in big bases and garrisons, much more could be done more thoroughly to integrate the Services.
I am disturbed to learn from those who are supposed to know that units in B.A.O.R. are very much under strength in the number of doctors available. When units go into battle they must have their medical officers with them, and, of course, the remarks I have just made about static bases and garrisons do not apply to them. I am told that these units are 50 per cent. under strength with medical officers. I was given that information by a responsible authority, and I want to hear what the Government have to say about this serious deficiency. Hon. Members may say, "If that is so, how can we alter it without conscription?" But the Government have said that they will reach the target of volunteers on which they have set their hearts, and that includes doctors as well as other troops.
I do not want the right hon. Gentleman to think that I am indulging in facetious criticism of him, although I

thought that he was a little bellicose when he spoke about the Opposition denigrating consistently Ministers of Defence and what they have said. There may be reasons for denigration, but I want now to put my remarks in the best perspective I can.
I hope that I shall not be blotting my copybook when I say this in support of the right hon. Gentleman, but I agree entirely with him that we cannot keep large forces in B.A.O.R., with a steadily mounting burden of about £70 million of hard currency to find in order to keep them there—not only for our own protection and security but also for the protection of others as well—unless we are compensated in some way or another. Therefore, if the right hon. Gentleman's threat is real and is not just bluff to those in N.A.T.O. who have the final say, we must be prepared for a diminution of our forces in Europe unless some financial help is forthcoming.
The right hon. Gentleman gave us figures of the numbers of troops and their supporters, all of whom have to be paid for. I found these figures staggering. There are 60,000 troops in Western Europe—and 3,000 in West Berlin—with 10,000 uniformed German auxiliaries and 34,000 civilians who have to be paid for.

Mr. Watkinson: I do not want there to be any misunderstanding. The 3,000-strong Berlin garrison is paid for because that garrison is still, strangely enough, part of the occupation forces. But everything else has to be paid for in Deutschmarks.

Mr. Bellenger: Even if we deduct the 3,000 men of the West Berlin garrison, we are still responsible for 104,000 on the British payroll. We in Parliament who are concerned with finance as well as other matters must take cognisance of this fact and, if necessary, support the right hon. Gentleman in his attempts to extract a contribution from N.A.T.O. towards these finances which we have to find.
I was interested to hear what the right hon. Gentleman said about a mobilisation exercise in September. The trouble about Ministers is that they often let fall, as an aside, as it were, certain important facts which raise a host of questions in the minds of right hon. and


hon. Gentleman who understand the implications. What does the right hon. Gentleman's announcement about the mobilisation mean?
Mobilisation of the forces was preparatory to a declaration of war at one time. We must assume that political factors can be got over quite easily and that we can assure the Russians—for September is the awkward time of the year, when wars are likely to break out—that this is purely a military exercise and nothing more. The Minister seems to be quite confident that the Foreign Office can persuade Russia to that effect. I hope that he is right. He must know that the Russians are very suspicious.
Let us leave it at that for the moment. The Government must persuade the Russians that we do not mean anything more than a mock mobilisation in September. The right hon. Gentleman went on to say something else, however. He said that this mobilisation will mean calling up reserves, and he also mentioned the Territorial Army.

Mr. Watkinson: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War will deal with this matter when the Army Estimates are debated on Thursday. Any test mobilisation of the Territorial Army—which is what I was talking about—will take place at the weekend and will be a weekend drill. This is not quite as alarming as the right hon. Gentleman is making out. It is very useful, all the same.

Mr. Paget: May we take it that this will be a sufficiently mock mobilisation to alarm nobody?

Mr. Watkinson: That is another matter. I want to show that, when we say to N.A.T.O. that we can mobilise very quickly, our statement is based on that.

Mr. Bellenger: I do not want to take this matter too far as the Secretary of State for War will tell us more of the detail on Thursday. But I say to right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House that we must take many statements made by Ministers with a grain of salt. We must not merely accept that it does not mean anything more than a weekend exercise. The thought occurred to me at once, when the right hon. Gentleman referred to this in his speech,

that the mobilisation might mean calling the men up by proclamation. Now the right hon. Gentleman says that it will only be a little weekend jaunt for the Territorial Army. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) was quite right to ask whether this was to be a real mobilisation, from which we could draw certain conclusions, or whether it was not to be.
If it is to mean only a weekend calling up of the Territorial Army or the Reserves it will not yield much information, except perhaps a little administrative information. I thought that this would be a mobilisation involving B.A.O.R. forces. What becomes of the statement in the White Paper that, if the necessity arises, we can have the whole of B.A.O.R. up to war strength in a few days? I would have thought that a mobilisation would have been conducted on a sufficient scale to give the right hon. Gentleman conclusive proof of that statement. It seems to me that he is a little doubtful about the full meaning or implication of some of the things he has put in the White Paper.
There are several other points which I have singled out as testing the reality of the views put forward in the White Paper. Therefore, I come to my concluding remark, to which I referred earlier in my speech. Hon. Members will know that on almost every conceivable occasion when we have discussed Service Estimates, I have made a plea for some sort of Select Committee of this House in which hon. Members who are sufficiently interested could be given more facts than we are given today.
I believe that there are quite a few hon. Members on the Government benches who agree with the plea which I have made on previous occasions, but it does not look as if we will get what I have requested, in spite of the fact that I have given illustrations of where this procedure operates in countries like Germany, which presently will be the largest military force in Central Europe, far larger than Britain's or America's force in B.A.O.R. In spite of those illustrations which I have given, no notice is taken of my plea.
Now, I shall try another line and I do not know how far this will appeal to the Minister of Defence. He must know that there is a limited number of


hon. Members who take sufficient interest in service and military matters as to study them. It is no good the House going off on generalisations on occasions like this. Before the war—indeed, going back to the early part of the century—we had what was called an Imperial Defence College. Probably the Secretary of State for Air will remember it and, possibly, he has even appeared at the College. Responsible Members of the House were invited to the I.D.C. on various occasions. Now, we have the Defence College, which not only deals with the instruction of military, naval and air force personnel, but also includes civilian personnel in the shape of civil servants.
I put this proposal to the right hon. Gentleman in all seriousness. To enable those hon. Members who study the matter to have access, under proper conditions, to facts which would enable them to form a judgment as to whether our forces are capable of doing what we are told they will do—and, perhaps, even to avoid a Motion of censure on occasions—the right hon. Gentleman might be able sympathetically to consider enlisting the aid of those who are prepared to help on a matter which I for one never believed should be partisan. I put the defence of the country in the forefront of my duties as a Member of Parliament. If occasion arose, although it has not arisen so far, that I felt inclined to vote against my own party—as I have suggested to the right hon. Member for Hall Green that in view of his speech he should consider such action if he is to retain our belief in his sincerity—we might be doing something which would help forward rather than hinder the Minister, as he himself said this afternoon, in getting his Estimate through or his White Paper accepted.
It would be very good psychological warfare or action if it went out to the world that the British Parliament was ananimous about the size, shape, colour and the rest of it of our defence forces. Never let us forget that there is such a thing as psychological warfare, even in the cold war. I sometimes wonder whether we have not given too much to the Russains, who are putting it across all over the world and effecting conquests

—that is what it means in Cuba if it is allowed to go to its logical conclusion—at small cost to themselves other than their terrific radio propaganda.
In making my remarks on this subject, I have put forward, I hope, one or two constructive propositions. Although I regret to say to the Minister that I shall have to vote against him tomorrow night—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—for reasons which he well understands, nevertheless I wish him well in his projects and I only hope that he will give us a better opportunity for saying,
Well done, thou good and faithful servant.

6.15 p.m.

Sir John Maitland: I think that the whole House could agree with the right hon. Member for Basset-law (Mr. Bellenger) in his sentiment that we should put the defence of our country first. I do not, however, entirely agree with the right hon. Member that we do not have the right to disagree or that we should not disagree. The fact that we are critical—I hope constructively critical—emphasises that we are taking an intense interest in this most vital subject. I agree with much of what the right hon. Gentleman said. I will not follow him immediately, although one or two of the things which I shall say may fit in with what he has said. Although I cannot possibly hope to compete with the right hon. Member's oratory, I will at least be a little shorter.
I must be almost unique in this House ni saying that the White Paper seems to me to be a very good one. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence was quite right to set it out in the form of a plan. He made much more difficulty for himself, however, in doing so. On the one hand, he had to avoid rigidity with all its problems of wrongful commitments, and, on the other hand, he had to avoid flexibility, from which in the past we have suffered too much, with all its difficulties of indecision leading to a whole litter of unfinished projects. On the whole, my right hon. Friend has not done too badly. The White Paper is pretty well balanced.
The right hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker) was critical about our attitude to N.A.T.O. He seemed


to me to be exceedingly well indoctrinated. He did not, however, point out that we alone of the European nations have commitments in C.E.N.T.O. and S.E.A.T.O. as well. Obviously, other countries cannot understand our feelings about these matters. It is also true that there are flanks in this business. In the Middle East and a little further East than that, there are areas over which we alone are the people who can play a reasonably decisive rôle.
I agree entirely with my right hon. Friend the Minister. I put it down as the most important passage in the White Paper when he states, at the top of page 4, that
The contribution which we make to each of these alliances must be judged in the light of our total contribution to the defence of freedom and the maintenance of peace, not only in Europe but also in the Middle East, the Near East and the Far East, all areas of vital interest to the Free World as a whole.
I also do not think that the people of Europe, or the Americans for that matter, altogether appreciate and like countries who are subservient and do not take their own line. I am entirely in favour of taking our own line in this matter and of believing it to be right and not paying, perhaps, so much attention, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Aubrey Jones) did, to what the Americans will think or, in the case of the right hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker), to what the Europeans will think. I believe that if these things are right, we should do them.
I go further than the White Paper. If in future we were able to withdraw part of our military commitment and station it in England, that might be feasible; but it depends entirely on whether we can have efficient mobility. I did not agree with what my right hon. Friend the Member for Hall Green said about this subject. When this country forgets the importance of mobility, most of the contribution which we can make to Western defence will have gone. Every country has its own advantages and disadvantages. We have many disadvantages, one of which is that we are particularly and peculiarly unsuited to fighting a continental war, even though we are members of Europe.
I am not ashamed of learning from the past, because I believe the future is

very much reflected in it. We, because of our position as islanders, have learned over the years the importance of mobility. I would stress to the Minister that he should press on with and emphasise this business of mobility even more than he did in the two previous White Papers. We saw the importance of mobility beginning to creep in and to be emphasised in those White Papers and this one emphasised that importance even more. I should like to see it stressed even further. If we are to have full mobility it means interdependence between the Services, and interdependence means greater emphasis on dovetailing the Services.
It is interesting to note that nowadays all the Services have themselves integrated the other Services with them. Almost for generations the Navy has had its own army and air force. The Army has its air force and a considerable navy. The Air Force has some magnificent military weapons in Aden, and it has its own small army and navy. If, therefore, sensible people realise the need for these branches of the Services to act together there is an argument for greater integration between them.
There must be inefficiency and lack of manœuvreability if the Services are allowed to continue to have their own little private armies and navies. Surely they could be run together much more efficiently. If we could do that I believe that they would fight even more efficiently than they would at present, because men who have worked and played together and drunk beer in the same canteen fight better than those who have led entirely separate existences.
I would therefore do what I could to try to make it possible for the Services to share the same barracks and various activities which would bring them closer together. I am glad to see that emphasis is now placed on inter-Services exercises. I hope that that emphasis will grow. Moreover, there should be to some extent, and I believe that there can be, an interchange of rôles. I may irritate some elderly military Members, when I say that I believe that at present the Navy is better off in manpower than the other two Services. I think that, as we have done in the past, it is perfectly practicable and feasible to use a naval brigade. I cannot see why we should not ask the


Navy to train a naval brigade. If we have "Ever-readies" why not have a naval brigade? Obviously, it would be futile to expect sailors not as well trained as infantry to engage in major military operations. It would be murder to send them into battle at the front, but there are many jobs they could do in these bush-fire wars.
There have been several such occasions recently, some of which were mentioned today by the Minister. British Guiana is one. Garrison duty at Hong Kong is another. There are many places and occasions where a naval brigade could do as well and as efficiently and perhaps could assist the Army which, as we know, is now drawn out and hard pressed for numbers. I commend that to the Minister as a serious idea.
I was glad to note from the White Paper that ideas in the Navy are turning more and more towards amphibious warfare. It is interesting to note from the White Paper how my right hon. Friend proposes to deal with that aspect at headquarters. I cannot quite see what the answer is in the field. Is there to be another organisation, or will command be given to the senior officer of the three Services on the spot? Is it intended to train a special staff which would be able to take charge of a large operation? This brand of amphibious warfare needs a great deal of close study, and perhaps greater consideration should be given to the question of the command of these operations before they take place.
I should like to deal also with our responsibilities in connection with the decision to have Regular Army, Navy and Air Forces made up entirely of volunteers. I know only too well that we shall hear later on in the debate some very good reasons why some hon. Members think that that will not be possible. I have always been convinced that Regular Forces are the answer for this country, but if we decide to have them we enter into two definite but different commitments.
First, we have a duty to the short-term and medium-term people and then a rather different duty to the long-service people. I am pleased to see from the Memoranda to the Service Estimates that there is a tendency to sign on again

for longer periods. This is excellent, but there is a danger in it if it goes too far. If we have everybody signing on we shall clutter up the normal channels of promotion and to some extent diminish our active reserve. In future, therefore, we must watch this business of re-engagement. If recruiting goes reasonably well there may come a moment in all the Services when we may have to control re-engagement. If we have to do that, as I believe we may, it will emphasise our duties to the two different branches.
First, as I have said, there is our duty to the short-term people. Recently I visited Holy Loch, in company with another hon. Member, and I was immensely impressed by the training which the American Navy gives to its sailors. The American Navy has been made the finest means in the United States of obtaining technical training. If we want good Army, Navy and Air Forces we must have forces made up of technicians and officers who are technologists. There is a tremendous opportunity here not only to help recruiting but to enable the short-term men to learn jobs which will make them, par excellence, employable in good jobs when they come out of the Services. We should concentrate a great deal on that for the short-term and medium-term people.
The long-service people must be treated in a slightly different way, particularly if we have some control over re-engagement. Their service must be a good career offering all the opportunities, that is to say without envisaging some other job afterwards when the man is on retirement pension. These are the people who must be helped in that direction. Those are the two great duties which we cannot evade and which we must tackle if we are to make a success of regular enlistment. I should like to have seen more about this in the White Paper. I agree that it is mentioned in the Memoranda to the Service Estimates, but this seems to me to be a central matter which should be dealt with in the Defence White Paper.
I hope that we shall do everything in our power to get a Regular Service. I do not think of it so much in terms of numbers, although if we do it the right


way I think that the numbers will come in just as they would were we to nail the flag of conscription to the mast for ever. What an awful thought! I think that the great advantage of a Regular Service is that we keep the Services in the affections of the people in a way that we can never do with conscription.

6.31 p.m.

Mr. George Wigg: I have great sympathy with the hon. Member for Horncastle (Sir J. Maitland) in his desire to look carefully at our overseas commitments, but when he wants to maintain those commitments at the expense of our N.A.T.O. commitments, he is a little late in the day. The time to have looked at these commitments was when Sir Anthony Eden as he was then, came to the House of Commons and committed not only his party but the country to maintaining four divisions in Europe. Where was the hon. Gentleman then? He should have been alongside me saying, "This is all very well, but I am against this because I know full well that we cannot honour this country's word to maintain four divisions in Europe without conscription." He cannot have it all ways. He cannot now look nostalgically over his shoulder at the little reds spots on the map, turn down conscription, and say, "I back the Government's White Paper". It just will not do.

Sir J. Maitland: The world marches on. It is true that I supported Sir Anthony Eden when he brought in that proposal, but I think that I am entitled to change my mind after all these years. Is one to be so conservative, and always stick to a thing, as the hon. Gentleman does? I have heard his speech at least four times.

Mr. Wigg: I have made it more than four times, and the hon. Gentleman has not yet learnt it by heart. If he is saying that his word of honour, and his country's word of honour, can be thrown away lightly, I do not agree with him. If that is Conservative doctrine, I am glad that I am not one, because that is partly our trouble. Nobody trusts us. When the hon. Gentleman meets his N.A.T.O. colleagues they do not take notice of what he says. They read the flannel in the White Paper, and they read his speeches, and they know that

this country has the reputation of always being able to find excuses for doing what it wants to do. I am being courteous to the hon. Gentleman in replying to that part of his speech, but I want to turn to the White Paper and to the speech of the Minister of Defence.
I have taken part in, or at least sat through, every defence debate since I came to the House in 1945. I cannot remember a worse speech than the one I heard this afternoon. I think that in all charity I must say that his Department briefed him extremely badly. On point of fact after point of fact he was off the target. But I will not dwell on the right hon. Gentleman, because the issues involved in this White Paper are fundamental and, therefore, more important.
We are told that this is the policy for the next five years, and we are told that it is evolutionary. The country is invited to believe that this White Paper has grown out of what happened during the last five years. One of the advantages of the discipline of sitting through every defence debate is that at least I know what has been said, and I have read what has been written. This White Paper bears no relation at all to the 1957 White Paper.
We were told in the 1957 White Paper that we were going to save money. The raison d'être was to save money. We were going to have atomic streamlined forces. We were going to depend on the missile. We were not going to have a new fighter. We were not going to have a new bomber. That policy has been falsified in every respect. The cost has gone up. We have a successor to the V-bomber in the TSR II. Blue Streak has gone down the drain. The Government have imposed a form of selective service. No one can deny it; certainly no one who listened to the debate on the Army Reserve Bill, or who looks at the White Paper. After that Bill becomes law there is to be an examination into the reserve forces, and of course we have been playing with a new fighter.
The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Aubrey Jones) cogitated on the reasons for this. I think that it is not unimportant to consider the reasons that make not only the Government, but the Opposition, tick.


The recognition of our present position brings tears to my eyes, and I am not optimistic about things ever being put right. This White Paper is not a defence policy. It is a policy of bits and pieces, which maximises the cost and minimises the defence content. If we are ever to get this right, we must understand how we reached this position.
I suppose that what went wrong with Suez was that there was a certain sense of national wrong-doing. Moreover, even those who could overcome their consciences recognised that the operation had been incompetently carried out. I suppose our new Prime Minister thought that he could salve his conscience, wipe away the memories of incompetence, and at the same time save money. And so he went for the missile. This was Blue Streak. I do not think that these were ignoble motives. He took over the reins of office when the fortunes of his party were at their lowest ebb, and he had to nurse them back.
When we look at the Opposition, their record is not much better. I well remember the broadcast given by my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) on 30th March, 1957. What was he going to do? There were to be no fighters, and no bombers. He, too, was going to have missiles. He was going to get rid of conscription.
The consequence to this country of the joint forces in this pillow fighting, this playing with a soft ball between the two Front Benches, meant that we kept Blue Streak for at least a year after it was no longer viable. It had another result. Anybody who knows anything about the Rhine Army, anybody who has relatives or friends there and has visited the units there and talked to other ranks and officers, knows that the trouble there is that the Rhine Army is deployed too far back. It has no medium artillery. It has three composite regiments, Honest John, atomic artillery, and two Corporal regiments stuck on an old airfield at Dortmund because this is the only place with the juxtaposition of an old airfield and barracks, guarded when they go into action by Panzer Grenadiers. Every one knows that these tactical atomic weapons do not add up to a viable fighting instrument. This is what the Americans complain

about. If we are going to provide fighting forces, at least let us organise ourselves to do it properly.
I share the view expressed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker). Perhaps the greatest of all threats to peace is the emergence of twelve German divisions—well-equipped and well-trained, and armed not with Honest Johns or Corporals but with Mace, or the latest American Pershings. We all know that orders have been placed fox Pershings. This is a picture which belittles our influence on the Continent. It is a picture of a Britain with a minimum viability, and at the same time it guarantees that we shall be engaged in permanent exchange difficulties because of the hard currencies involved.
The Minister opened his speech by mentioning a matter to which I have referred on many occasions—the question of conscription. I shall not say much about it this afternoon, but I must mention it, because if I do not somebody will say that I have run away from it, and I certainly do not want to give that impression. I have done my sums, and I will give the House the advantage—if that is the right word—of those sums. Last year we were given an estimate of 166,200 Regulars on 1st April, 1962. This year the figure was broken down to 158,700 Regular male adults plus 9,600 boys, totalling 168,300.
During the course of the last year we improved our manpower position by 2,000, but let the House note that during that period we have given a bounty of £200 to every Regular soldier extending his service to nine years, and a similar bounty to every National Service main who undertakes a Regular engagement, and have lowered the standard of entrance into the Army to an unbelievable degree. No announcement has been made, but it has happened. We have scoured the Commonwealth for Fijians, people from the Seychelles, and any other Commonwealth members whom we can persuade to join the Army.
This is a once-for-all increment, in all cases. Yet, at maximum cost, we have turned on television publicity in order to try to persuade all sorts of people to come in, irrespective of whether or not they will stay in. At the end, all that we have managed to do is to push the


estimate up by 2,000. I still believe that we shall not get 165,000, but whether or not we do so is irrelevant. What is important this afternoon is that the right hon. Gentleman is back again, playing the old Sandys trick.
We know it well. We have recognised it before. We know its history. When the first 1957 White Paper came out we were told that the target was 375,000. The figure was not broken down; it was simply 375,000 for the three Services. The following year it was broken down. There were to be 165,000 for the Army, 135,000 for the Royal Air Force, and 88,000 for the Navy—a total of 388,000. A year later recruiting was going a little better, and pressures inside the Services were very great. The Secretary of State then said that the Army of 165,000 was to be increased by 15,000. That made the total 403,000. It was subsequently leaked that the real target for the Army was 182,000, which made the total 405,000.
Now, in the sacred name of integration, the Minister tells us that the strength of the three Services is to be 390,000.

Mr. Watkinson: If the hon. Member will read the report in HANSARD in the morning he will see that I said quite plainly that the figure would be between 390,000 and 400,000.

Mr. Wigg: I know. I hope that has not been altered in the meantime. The Minister said 390,000.

Mr. Watkinson: That remark has nothing to do with the case.

Mr. Wigg: I know, but these things do happen. We were told that the figure would be 390,000. The Minister did not say 390,000 for nothing. That is what he is aiming at at present—so we can knock 15,000 off our 182,000 and we are now back to 167,000. This produces the sum that is to be met by the Government and by my right hon. Friend the Member for Smethwick.
If he were riding a horse in the Grand National, he would not go right up to Becher's Brook and then stop. He might stop the horse, but he would go on, and that is exactly what happens if we try to build up the Rhine Army to a figure between 60,000 and 65,000. All that we shall be doing, over a long period is to

run away from our commitments and get the worst of all worlds by pretending that we make do with half a battalion instead of a battalion in Malta and Gibraltar. We cannot meet our commitments without having conscription in some form. This fact must be faced by both Government and Opposition alike. It is no good telling me that I am advocating conscription. I am not advocating conscription. What I am saying is that both Government and Opposition—not by their words but by their actions—have created a situation in which conscription if, inevitable.
Last week I received a telegram from Captain Taylor who, in the early part of the week, was still serving in the 16/5th Lancers. In that telegram he asked me to support his conscription campaign in the Lincoln by-election. I sent him a telegram in return saying that I stood by my views about conscription, but that I thought that these policies ought to be put through by the major parties and that the problem should not be tackled by putting up Independent candidates at by-elections. Nevertheless, I am proud of the fact that it was a Regular soldier who was prepared to sacrifice his career for his country's good. That is an example that might be followed by Ministers of Defence and perhaps even by budding politicians
I think that Captain Taylor's political actions are wrong, and I mention his case not because he sent me a telegram but because of the many occasions on which the House has been told, "The Army wants to get rid of conscription. We cannot find any Regular officers who do not want to get rid of conscription." This young officer, serving in a crack cavalry regiment, with all his Service career in front of him took the view that conscription was necessary, and those of us who have been to Germany know that the view is held throughout B.A.O.R., for this force can fight only one sort of war, and that would be a nuclear war which they could fight for a few days. The House must face this fact.
I now turn to another far more serious consequence of the defence policies which have been followed during the last five years. We are told that we cannot maintain our forces in Germany because of currency costs. I am not an economist, and I will not go into the


question whether or not that statement is true. I will take it at its face value. But what has been the consequence of the Sandys policy on the aircraft industry? I have done my homework, and have gone through it stage by stage. I have read the bogus document produced by the present Secretary of State for Air last year and again this year. He made the second worse defence speech that I have ever heard, a year ago.
We are told that the Lightning is the best fighter in the world. Perhaps I may quote the actual words. Paragraph 30 of the Air Estimates says:
The Lightning has proved itself to be in the forefront of contemporary fighter design.
There have been eight international fighter Mach. II competitions, five of which have been won by the American F.104 and three by the French Mirage. In case anybody thinks that the Mirage is not comparable with our Lightning, let me say that it carries the same load with half the thrust, and has 10 to 15 per cent. more speed. May I hasten to add—the right hon. Gentleman may not tell us—that the speed of the Lightning is under Mach. II.
We turn now to the sphere of light transport. There have been eight international competitions which were all won by the Dutch F.27. The Avro 748M, of which the Royal Air Force has ordered 40, has won none of these competitions. There have been nine competitions for regional jets. All these competitions are organised by Governments or, in the case of civil aircraft, by private firms. In the medium range category, there have been nine competitions of which five were won by the Caravelle and four by the Boeing 727. The British Trident failed in all the competitions. There were three competitions for heavy freighters, of which two were won by the Canadian CL44 and one by the American DC8F. The Belfast, which has not yet been delivered, did not win any. In all, there have been 28 international competitions and not a single one has been won by a British aircraft. Yet we are asked to believe that when it comes to a question of fighters, bombers and transports we are second to none.
Let us turn to the question of helicopters, for which there should be a

ready market and for which our forces are crying out. In the case of the Allouette, of which the French have manufactured 800, 400 have been exported. The only major British aircraft which have been sold is three VC10s to Ghana, which has no money, six Viscounts to China—and, politically that was a pretty "dodgy" decision. There are six B.A.C. 111s which an American firm has ordered, but I believe there is an escape clause in the contract which would enable the firm to cancel the order if it wished.
This is not all. Let us look to the future. The only aircraft which this country is producing at the present time which has any hope of gaining access to the markets of the world is the VC10, the TSR 2, the Belfast and the supersonic transport. Of course, we have no orders for any. The consequences of the policy of the Ministry of Defence, the defence policy which has been pursued, are disastrous for the Services; but also they are disastrous from the point of view of the economy of the country.

Mr. R. J. Maxwell-Hyslop: I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is aware that the Indian Government are building the Avro 748 under licence and that, to the best of my knowledge, the Argentinians have ordered the Avro 748 and a couple of Canadian airlines recently ordered the Herald?

Mr. Wigg: I know that the Indians have been playing around with the Avro 748 as a Dakota replacement, and I know the special difficulties of the Indian Government which has made it recently buy the extended Orpheus and the Olympus. But I do not think that the experiences of India and the Argentine is a fair example. Much more to the point, in my opinion, is that in the case of fighters, where the Dutch and the Swiss regularly took British aircraft, one type after another they and the Australians—we lost the Australian market a long time ago—have switched to other aircraft. I do not think that the Avro 748 will make much impact on the markets of the world, and this I think answers the hon. Gentleman.
The hon. Gentleman's question, however, misses my point, which is that there is a market in certain fields, such as utility aircraft, helicopters and fighters,


for which we ought to produce something. The responsibility for not having done so rests fairly and squarely on the Minister of Defence, on the one hand, and the Secretary of State for Air, on the other. They have taken wrong policy decisions. Anyone who has studied the matter knows that the Air Force has not an efficient aircraft.
One can turn, of course, as I now intend to do, from aircraft to rockets, where the story is the same. Bluestreak, which involved us in fantastic cost, was maintained for at least a year after it was no longer effective. There are three possible air-to-air weapons—Firestreak, Red Top and Seaslug. Firestreak was moderately successful. It is true that the market for Bloodhound Mark II has been very successful, which again shows that there is a market if we produce the right weapon. But the Navy has taken the Seacat, a weapon designed to hit low-flying aircraft. The PR 428 intended for the Army has been cancelled, and the Army will have to be content with the second best.
My argument does not depend on the question of limited resources or of tackling things Which are beyond our capacity. It relates to the question of aircraft and missiles. My point is that the right decisions have not been taken. I think that Bloodhound is a good example of what could be done when the right decision is taken. But let us see where this policy goes. We went for Blue Streak, a strategic weapon. We never troubled about producing a tactical weapon. Now the Navy, for Bucanneer—our old friend N.A.39—is reported to be buying 1,000 American Bullpups. I should have thought it would have been possible for this country to produce a weapon which we could have sold to the N.A.T.O. countries and to countries in the British Commonwealth.
The Bucanneer was an aircraft which the Air Force declined to take, and it went to the Navy as a low-level strike weapon. Now, if you please, the rumour is that the Air Force is contemplating taking it back again. The consequences of all this militarily and economically, are absolutely disastrous. I do not know whether it is technically possible, or whether it is too late to make any change, but certainly we are left to pay the bill for American weapons and we shall get

nothing back into the "kitty" from selling something which we might have produced ourselves.
I wish now to turn to another aspect of the defence White Paper. Last October, those who are near and dear to the Ministry of Defence were running the line that the motif of the present White Paper was to be integration. There was to be an attempt to integrate the three Services and produce a viable balanced force. It is interesting to note that in three places in the White Paper there is mention of balance. In three separate paragraphs the question of balance is referred to. Today the Minister of Defence did not tell us anything about it. He passed it by.
I wish to remind the House, as I have on many previous occasions, that in the debates on the Gracious Speech, what I thought the most revealing statement was when the Prime Minister admitted, and was frank about the fact, that our forces lacked balance. They certainly lack balance. How can it be restored? This will be no simple task. If we are to integrate the three Services, I think that we should start by having common user storage on such simple things as medical personnel and supplies, on the chaplain service and the supply services as a whole. Unless we are to lay ourselves open to a period of prolonged weakness, the process would have to be done gradually and over a long time. The Minister of Defence seems now to have dropped the idea. It seems to me that the right hon. Gentleman has "given up the ghost" and has said to the three Services, "There is your Estimate, this is the broad policy—get on with it."
When one reads the White Papers produced by the three Service Departments, as I have tried to do, it is perfectly clear that there is no thought of integration in the mind of anyone in the three Services. These are three separate papers of three separate Departments each looking at defence policy and seeing three different pictures and each going its own way.

Mr. Harold Davies: Each with a policy?

Mr. Wigg: The overall policy is there, but the way they handle it is in three different ways. We have a defence White Paper which talks about the next five years, which talks of evolution as if the


policy adumbrated grew out of the last five years, whereas what we were given in 1957 was thrown away in 1958, 1959, and 1960. We get a rehash of bits and pieces, yet the White Paper talks of the next five years.
I think that in its own way the Opposition has come up to Beecher's Brook. It is producing a viable, sensible defence policy, all except in one field, in the question of manpower.

Mr. S. Silverman: That is the whole thing.

Mr. Wigg: My hon. Friend says that it is the vital thing. I am inclined to agree. We have to remember that it has always been the view of many of my hon. Friends—and their views are as honest as I hope mine are—that the reason that they have gone for atomic tactical weapons was that if they did not they would be brought face to face with a difficult decision about conscription. An atomic arms policy was a substitute for a viable manpower policy. This is the view which I believe has been honestly held.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Smethwick put his finger on the subject when he spoke of the situation in relation to V bombers. Obviously he has not the knowledge, nor has anyone else, to say at what point we should cancel contracts for the Mark IIs or the T.S.R. IIs. He cannot make that decision. It is a decision for Governments to make knowing what effect it may have not only on ourselves but also on our allies. But, having got as far as that, we are brought to the inescapable conclusion that we cannot maintain a viable force in Germany and cannot serve our Commonwealth commitments unless we have some form of selective service, which is what the Government have done through the Army Reserves Act.
I say this to my right hon. Friend the Member for Smethwick and any other hon. Member, including the hon. Member for Horncastle (Sir J. Maitland). If they try to juxtapose the Rhine Army with our Commonwealth commitments they are asking the wrong question. The problem which faces us is, what is the minimum number of infantry battalions and armoured regiments—teeth arms—

we require in order to meet our N.A.T.O., S.E.A.T.O. and CENTO. obligations and to maintain the strategic reserve? The decision in July. 1957, was 60 battalions of infantry. Can we produce 60 battalions of infantry of a reasonably effective establishment inside 165,000 men and at the same time provide them with the necessary services to enable them to fight and at the same time provide a strategic reserve? My answer is that we cannot.
Until someone demonstrates that we can, I shall go on—even though people complain of my boring them—saying over and over again that the basic decision which will put this country once again on the bottom rung of the ladder which may lead to economic and defence viability is a firm, hard decision about selective service.

7.5 p.m.

Sir Harry Legge-Bourke: I hope that some of the remarks I shall be making later in my speech will interest the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg), if he can bear to wait that long. He has added to his long list of accusations against the Government one which I particularly hope to deal with. That is the question of what he alleges to be misjudgments over selecting various types of aircraft and so forth.
I wish to go back to the beginning of the debate and to refer to some of the remarks made by the right hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker). He got on to a subject on which we are entitled to have different opinions. I think that he has the wrong opinion, and no doubt he will think that I have the wrong one. It particularly relates to the deterrent. There are many factors which always affect our defence policy. Some are ephemeral as weapons come and go, and others vary in the relevance they have to the policy, such as manpower, fire power and so forth, which vary over the years, but some are constants.
I believe that the most constant factor of all is one which we frequently tend to overlook altogether. It is the fact that man's natural state is not peace. Ever since man has been created he has been warring with other men down the centuries. I firmly believe that the most important thing for us all to remember is that man is by nature a warring animal. In other words, he is


fighting to survive just like every other species of life. He is fighting to survive, or to stop someone preventing him surviving.
If we look back to creation we can see that man has traded in fear through the whole of his existence, up till now. It seems that we have reached the point, for the first time in the history of man, when he can no longer trade in fear because something else has happened. He has been given power for the first time in history which, if he misuses it, can destroy whatever form of civilisation he has tried to produce to restrain the natural instinct of man to war. He is now given this power which at once forces him, for the first time in his existence, through his own actions to hold in awe the power he has got. If that does not teach him humility, I do not suppose anything ever will. I believe that this distinction between fear and awe is profoundly important in nuclear deterrence, but perhaps the right hon. Member for Smethwick would say that probably the nuclear deterrent is still trading in fear.

Mr. Gordon Walker: Mr. Gordon Walker indicated dissent.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: The right hon. Member shakes his head. That means that he agrees?

Mr. Gordon Walker: I do not know if the hon. Member is talking of the Western deterrent. If he is speaking of the Western deterrent, I certainly agree.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I am glad to hear the right hon. Member say that, because the deterrent part of nuclear weapons lies in the balance of nuclear equality, or as near equality as we can keep in the world. That was made clear by the Prime Minister earlier today, before this debate, when he was telling us of the awful decision he has had to take. That decision is absolutely right. I believe that the American President's decision is also absolutely right, because the one thing we must do if we want to retain the awe which nuclear power ought to give man is to keep the balance even and to see that no one side is allowed to be so predominant that eventually the effectiveness of the deterrent disappears altogether.
War is never natural if we keep the balance, but I am certain that if we let the balance go, in the end war becomes almost inevitable. I had the privilege of watching on television yesterday the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Mr. P. Noel-Baker) in a programme called "Freedom from Fear". I do not share his most pessimistic views about the disarmament conferences which are to be held. He suggested that if they fail, nuclear war is inevitable. I tell him with all the sincerity that I can muster that I am far more frightened of the prospect of disarmament than I am of the nuclear deterrent being kept in existence.

Mr. S. Silverman: Then the hon. Member need lose no sleep.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: Nothing is more likely to lead to war than for us to sign a disarmament agreement.

Mr. Philip Noel-Baker: I was not aware that this programme had appeared in Britain. It was originally prepared for the United States. Is the hon. Member aware that the view which I expressed was enunciated twelve months ago by the twelve Prime Ministers of the Commonwealth and last September by President Kennedy, without any reservation of any kind?

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I do not dispute that. It does not mean that I need agree with them. I do not.

Mr. P. Noel-Baker: Then the hon. Member is in a small minority.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: It would not be the first time that I have been in the minority of one. In fact, there is a big difference between my right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation and myself. He himself left the Government whereas I suggested that others should. Sometimes one finds oneself in a minority of one, but on this occasion I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Horncastle (Sir J. Maitland) in welcoming the White Paper, because it shows a sense of reality which previous White Papers have not shown.
Among the basic constant factors in deciding a defence policy is one which is all too frequently forgotten—that the natural state of man is war. From that we come to the next most important


constant factor for Britain, and that is her geographical position. One of the reasons which makes me welcome the White Paper more than any other White Paper is that for the first time since World War II a Minister of Defence appears to have realised the immense importance of mobility and of economy of force in the United Kingdom's defence policy.
I have said this before in the House, and I hope that I shall be forgiven if I say it again: our geographical position in the world is unique. If we put the United Kingdom at the pole and draw a line at the new equator, the only land which is not in the hemisphere of which the United Kingdom is the pole is the very tip of South America, Australia, New Zealand, Antarctica, the Malayan Peninsular and the very tip of South-East Asia. All the rest is in the hemisphere of which Britain is the pole. It is for that reason that in the maritime age—as we are in the air age, and as we remain from a maritime point of view—we were the centre of the land masses of the world. There is more land of which we are the centre than in the case of any other country in the world.
This reason above all others dictates that we must adopt exterior lines of communication in our strategic thinking. This is no greater danger arising out of the present Common Market negotiations than the possibility that we shall eventually move on to interior Continental lines of communication to an extent which would make it impossible for us to extricate ourselves in time if we determined to do, what we must always do—to remain on good terms with the greatest sea Power of the day, if we cannot be that sea Power ourselves.
For centuries we were that sea Power, and we kept the Pax Britannica longer than any other country has kept peace in the world. But nothing could be more terrifying from our point of view than to find ourselves involved politically and inextricably on interior lines of communication on a Continent overrun by Communism, because I do not believe that the Americans would give us time to get out before they started to deal with that situation. That is what terrifies me about the present negotiations with Europe. Economically, I

see the arguments in favour with closer links with Europe, but by far the most dangerous aspect of the Common Market negotiations is the likelihood of their leading us eventually to interior lines of communications.
For this reason, I welcome greatly the change of emphasis—I put it no stronger than that—in the White Paper, away from committing Britain quite so much into Europe and towards concentrating more on the flanks of N.A.T.O. and on the other two great Treaties of which we are members, S.E.A.T.O. and CENTO. I am sure that this must be right, because it is essential that exterior lines of communication around the great land masses form the basis of our policy.
I appreciate all the arguments used by the hon. Member for Dudley. If Sir Anthony Eden or anybody else pledged the word of the country that we shall maintain four divisions within treaty territories, then we ought to honour that commitment to the best of our ability unless we get agreement from the other signatories of the treaty providing that we need not do quite so much. It would be quite wrong to default without permission.
Certainly the impression being given by such newspapers as the N.A.T.O. Journal, which is becoming a thoroughly anti-British publication, is quite different from the impression which I have about the relationship between SACEUR and the Government. As far as I can see, our difficulties are understood. The right hon. Member for Smethwick quoted the significant sentence in paragraph 15,
During this period the proportion of these forces to be stationed on the mainland of Europe and in Britain respectively must depend to a large extent on the balance of payments position.
I quite agree, and I cannot believe that that sentence would have been included in the White Paper had it not been known to the N.A.T.O. authorities that it was intended to include it. Surely it was a sensible thing to do. This is why I wish to turn to the question of how to finance the defence policy.

Mr. Shinwell: Before the hon. Member leaves that point, may I ask him whether he is aware that when we pledged ourselves to provide four divisions for


N.A.T.O. it was on the clear understanding that the troops and all the appurtenances would be financed by the German Government?

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I know. As my hon. Friend the Member for Horncastle said earlier, circumstances have changed a good deal since those days. Some things which have happened have not pleased the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell). Some of them have not pleased me, either. But the situation has changed. My right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) once made a comment with which I profoundly agree—that when circumstances change one must be prepared to change one's mind a little. There is nothing more fatuous than to go on taking the same doctrinaire attitude about a situation when the circumstances no longer obtain which obtained when the attitude was first struck.
How do we finance the defence policy outlined in the White Paper? Nothing will make any sense in the White Paper, which I think is a very good White Paper, if the economy of the country cracks. It can crack easily. We are living in the most extraordinary period of mankind. We are living at the moment, in a sort of latter-day epicureanism, when the new cry seems to be "Eat, drink and have all the 'lolly' we want, because tomorrow we may fry". That seems to be the outlook held by all too many people at the moment. The modern word for it is "inflation". If we allow inflation to continue, if we have these everlasting alterations of a Budget which we are told is fixed, we shall not pull through this period.
The Times of 6th February, in a very notable leading article, said:
It will be no use having held the front door against inflation, if the Government themselves supinely continue to let it in at the back.
I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation saw the article on the same terms which appeared in the Sunday Times yesterday. Mr. Margach said:
Too many of Mr. Lloyd's colleagues are inflationists themselves, which exposes the Government to the charge of applying double standards in the economic field.
If we are uncertain whether we shall really make the economy sound, the

White Paper will not be capable of implementation. That is my point. I do not want to elaborate it now. In debating the White Paper it would not be proper for me to go into detailed suggestions of how we could put the economy right, but I say without any hesitation whatsoever that if there are inflationists in the Government today they ought to get out, because we shall not keep our economy sound and have a sound defence policy if we allow inflation to undermine our economy. We can only hope to have a sound defence policy and play our full part in keeping the peace if we earn our keep in the world. We shall not earn our keep in the world if we allow inflation to exist in this country.
The debate began with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence telling us that as a result of implementing a pre-pause pledge, which the recommendations of the Grigg Committee certainly were, the bill for defence this year, which is already £93 million higher than it was last year, will now be another £28 million, given in two bites each of £14 million. I regard pre-pause pledges as demanding implementation and, with the right hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger), I put defence very nearly at the top of the tree, but not quite. I put productivity, education and research and development higher than that, because without these things the country cannot hope to finance its defence. For it will not be exporting enough and, consequently, will not be paying its way in the world.
Apart from these matters, defence comes very high indeed and we must honour that pre-pause pledge. We have to pay for it, and it will be all the more difficult. It will be £28 million worth more difficult to meet the defence bill this year. This means that there ought to be £28 million less for something else. It is no good the Government keeping on saying that they must do the right thing but they cannot hold it at that price, and so it is going up again. We must be prepared to change policy if we cannot do it in any other way. The one thing we must not do is to allow inflation to be the excuse for getting out of our duty.
I want now to say something about paragraphs 44 and 45 of the White


Paper. The hon. Member for Dudley made some comments about aircraft. A very important report was published recently by the Committee on the Management and Control of Research and Development, under the chairmanship of Sir Solly Zuckerman, who is the Chief Scientific Adviser to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence. The Report makes seventeen specific recommendations in relation to defence alone. The White Paper contains the statement that the Government have already accepted and are largely putting into effect the main recommendations of the Committee.
I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation is here at the moment, because I hope that when he speaks in the debate, which I understand is to be tomorrow, he will be able to say something about this. The Committee made some intensely important observations. Perhaps the most important of all, which would cover the point the hon. Member for Dudley particularly had in mind, is contained in paragraph 192, which refers to the Deputy Chief of Air Staff in the Air Ministry and, under him, the Assistant Chief of Air Staff in Charge of Operational Requirements. The Report says:
An immense responsibility rests on the shoulders of these officers and they cannot, in our view, fully discharge this responsibility, bearing in mind the great complexity of modern weapons and equipment, without experience of scientific and technical as well as operational matters.
If the hon. Member for Dudley studies this Report—I assure him it is well worth studying—he will see that some of the mistakes which have been made in the past stemmed very largely from the fact, that this requirement was not met. Let us hope that it will be in future. It merely emphasises what we have all felt for some time, namely, that the scientific qualifications and "know-how" of the Civil Service, as well as of the Service Departments, must be improved.
I hope that this Report will be used as a springboard for further things, not least a review of the whole question of ordering once research and development are over. I know that many people in the aircraft industry agree with me in this. I do not believe that it is right at the moment, because I think that there is too often a collision between

the Minister of Defence and the Minister of Aviation. However cordial they may be personally, there is bound to be a collision because of the way things are set up at the moment. I hope that a further review will take place into these matters.
I do not want to detain the House any more. I am grateful to hon. Members for having been so patient with me. Our manpower, our economy, the £ sterling can go all too easily if we overstrain the economy. In all that we have done, since I have been in the House at any rate, we have been repeatedly told, "Oh, because of this, that and the other we have not been able to hit the target". La Pucelle in Henry VI said this:
Glory is like a circle in the water,
Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself,
Till, by broad spreading, it disperse to nought.
So is manpower. So is the Welfare State. So could be our defence effort. So all too often is the value of the £. When all those circles in the British home waters are spread too broad in the world, the economy collapses and there is nothing left to defend, least of all Governments.

7.28 p.m.

Mr. William Baxter: I agree with at least one thing which the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) said, namely, that it is right that minority opinion should be heard, even if the hon. Member is in a minority of one. I have listened, as many hon. Members have, to many debates in the House on more or less the same topic as that which we are discussing today. Each speech to which I have listened, by the Prime Minister, by the Minister of Defence and right down to back-bench Members, has filled me with nothing but depression.
Most right hon. and hon. Members have not fully realised or grasped the full significance of what we are trying to accomplish in the world today. In his opening remarks, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Aubrey Jones) struck the nail on the head. He said that the important thing is for the minds of men to be interested in and captured by the ideas we seek to propagate. We are not discussing a question of military might.


We are discussing a question of winning the minds of men and interesting them in the sort of society we seek to establish. When I was at school I was told that—
Stone walls do not a prison make
Nor iron bars a cage.
That is as true today as it was when it was written.
No matter what arms we may possess or what conquests we may make, we do not change the minds of men. We do not inculcate new ideas by ruthlessness or military might. All the peoples are longing for the tension that has developed over the last twenty years or so to be wiped away and for peace to become a reality. Our own people are looking to this House, and to each hon. Member in it, and to this five-year plan for some ray of hope. Are they likely to get that ray of hope from this assembly? I think the answer can only be in the negative. There is likely to be a feeling of fear and despondency when this debate is read.
Various speakers have put different points of view and have dealt with various aspects of the White Paper. Some get the idea that we could fight the next war, or a conflict in, say, central Germany over Berlin, by what is generally termed a conventional war; a little war that could be held for a period until the politicians got to work and brought about a settlement before the whole holocaust of nuclear war was let loose.
The great tragedy is that those who have spoken today, and who have spoken so often before in Defence debates, do not seem to realise that when a war is unleashed, its strategy takes a very difficult and unpredictable path. Today, the Minister of Defence referred to "the wide and uncharted sea of defence". That is an important phrase and should be stamped on the minds of all hon. Members, because we must realise that whenever war breaks out it is quite impossible to predict its course.
The White Paper states:
War today, wherever it might start, would be an immediate threat to the whole world".
That is quite true. Nobody could forecast where it would stop. There are those who suggest that the policy of the nuclear deterrent is the best means of preventing war. If that were so, why

should we object to Germany having nuclear arms, or why should we complain about France having them? I notice that there is a possibility of Canada having nuclear arms. Does any hon. Member believe that for all nations to possess these weapons would make peace more secure? But if we believe that it is good for us to have nuclear arms and that it is the only way to keep the peace, surely it is good for other nations to possess them, too. The same justification would be there, but everyone knows the falseness and stupidity of such an argument. At the same time, the nations that have them do not want to give them up.
Paragraph 13 of the White Paper says quite clearly that at one time Britain and America were the only two nuclear Powers in the world. We could then have taken the initiative to do away with this great weapon of destruction, when Russia did not possess it, but we continued to experiment with it and to develop it to such an extent that the Russians were ultimately bound to try to get it—and they succeeded.
This question of defence is like many others that come before the present Government. We can take their unfortunate approach to the Common Market, or their attitude to home affairs in this jet and atomic age. Generally speaking, the Government's line of approach is procrastination. They were unable to make decisions, and that inability to take decisions is one of the country's great disasters. In fact, their approach almost borders upon criminal negligence. The hon. Member for the Isle of Ely has indicted the Government on the financial side, because he feels that if we go on with the policy in this White Paper to its full extent only ruination can face the country. There is not a single hon. Member who has spoken today who has not stated quite categorically that the Government's actions in this matter of defence are foolish to the extreme. I call them criminal—indeed, they border on lunacy.
The great tragedy of our generation lies in the great mistakes made by our Governments even immediately after the war. In 1945, the troops of Britain, of America and of Russia met in Central Germany and embraced each other. Friendship was at a peak. Peace was


almost secure for the whole of mankind, for the future. We were marching—not marching, but free-wheeling—to a time of peace, plenty and security for all. What has happened since? Mankind has been betrayed by the politicians—by people like us. Today we are nearer to the holocaust of war and the brink of destruction of the human race than ever before, and most of our own people and many of the people throughout the world are beginning to lose faith in the politicians and in the possibility of peace in the future.
Who must take the blame for our being in this present unfortunate pass? It is, I think, reasonable to remind the House of what one of Roosevelt's sons thought about it. He was not a Russian or a pro-Russian, but just one of Roosevelt's sons; the son of a man who tried his best to establish a reasonable state of affairs in the world. He has said:
It was the U.S.A. and Britain who first shook the mailed fist, who first abrogated collective decisions.
He went on to say:
A small group of wilful men in London and Washington are anxious to create and foster an atmosphere of war and hatred against the Russians.
If that is true, it is a tragedy. Its truth is probably debatable, but it is the honest opinion of the son of that eminent man, who has spoken out to show that there have been at least as many mistakes in the attitude of the West as in that of the East.
Who has gained by Britain's dwindling influence in the world? Has it been Russia? No—it has been America. The influence of America has grown at the expense of Britain's influence. Most of us can recollect how difficult it was after the 1914–18 war to balance our economy, and how difficult it was to get the gold out of Fort Knox to keep things moving throughout the world. I do not want to debate the position of America. It is an interesting topic, but it is worth while our looking as unbiasedly as possible at this question to try to see the trend of events over the years—a trend which will put us into a more unfortunate position if we accept their dictates and go into the Common Market.
Let us reflect for a moment before we go too far with the ruination of the Great Britain we have known in the past. This, at least, is accepted by a great mass of reasonably intelligent people who are anxious to see the cold war stopped. Let us compare what is in the White Paper on page 4, paragraph 7, under the heading "War in the Nuclear Age", with what is stated on page 16, under the heading "Civil Defence". We find tragic contradictions. On page 7, we read:
An armed clash involving the vital interests of either side is, therefore, likely to lead to the virtual destruction of both and not merely to conquest or defeat.
Under "Civil Defence" we find that while we have spent £18 million this year, it is suggested that we should spend a little over £19 million next year. Am I to understand that if a nuclear war breaks out and we have four minutes' warning that the Civil Defence, scheme will be sufficient to get the civil population out of a city like Glasgow or London?
Do we think for a moment that this will make people believe that Civil Defence is a reality and a matter of practical politics? If, on the other hand, we have time at our disposal to evacuate these great cities, where shall we put the people, how shall we house them, feed them and give them water to drink? We are told by scientists of great eminence that the fall-out from a nuclear attack will be sufficient to contaminate not only the food but all the water that we seek to drink. It is fantastic. On the one hand, it is suggested that if war comes it will be a nuclear conflict, and on the other, that we shall be able to evacuate the public from the towns and villages to save them from mass destruction. What hypocrisy and what deceitfulness. It is astonishing and amazing.
The hon. Member for the Isle of Ely talked about the N.A.T.O. Journal being anti-British. Are we prepared to subscribe to an anti-British organisation—

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: The hon. Gentleman must make a distinction between what I said about N.A.T.O. as an organisation and what I said about the N.A.T.O. Journal. I was attacking the N.A.T.O. Journal for being an anti-British organisation. I was certainly supporting N.A.T.O. as an organisation.

Mr. Baxter: If that is what the hon. Member feels, that is his point of view. My point of view is that one of the great tragedies of this age and generation has been the birth of N.A.T.O. N.A.T.O. has been a tragedy from the beginning, and will be to the very end. The natural consequence of N.A.T.O. had to be the Warsaw Pact. We could not expect anything else.
One of the great calamities of our generation was the birth of N.A.T.O., and future generations will live to regret it. Does anyone think that the bases that we have here—the Polaris base, the Thor base and the various American bases—will save one person in this country if war should come? When people are asked; "Do you believe that if war comes these bases will save one person in this country?" their answer is a definite "No." The whole of this country, we are told, will be destroyed. Those who speak of the defence of the civilian population and the defence of Britain in a nuclear war are either criminals or fools who should be in asylums. It is fantastically ridiculous that mere should be in this House a mentality that believes and puts into a White Paper the suggestion that we can have both civil defence and a nuclear war. Talk about criminal negligence—it is more than that to reason that this should be permitted. I shall not go into details, but my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) spoke of how we were squandering millions of pounds. The right hon. Member for Hall Green told us that we are a wee small nation, that we should recognise that we are not a big nation but that we can still do a great deal of good work. My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley told us about maladministration in many aspects of the Air Ministry and the War Office. We have spent over £700 million in endeavouring to provide various missiles of destruction, but before they are on the production lines they are out of date.
A few months ago I spoke about the Polaris base and said that there was a possibility of Russia trying to devise a new technique, which would destroy the Polaris base and the Polaris submarine even as it went into operation. It was quite within the bounds of possibility that the ingenuity of mankind could devise a method whereby missiles which

we might seek to send could be redirected back to us. That is not without possibility.
The simple fact is that we are grappling with problems to which we do not know the answer. I am amazed and astonished that hon. Members can stand up in this House and tell us, with a great deal of seeming conviction, how the next war is to be fought and what type of Army we shall require, when the scientists tell us conclusively that if there is another war the human race will be destroyed. I say to the Government that if they do not face up to their responsibilities in these matters they are doing a great injustice not only to our people but to the people of all the world. Great Britain could be a great wee Power. We should take no part in these great weapons of destruction. We should send the Polaris base, the Polaris submarine and the Thor base back from whence they came. Let Britain lead the world in the ways of peace and not in the ways of war.
The Defence White Paper is a misstatement of fact. It is a White Paper for the preparation and the destruction of the human race. Before it is too late, let us direct our attention towards matters of peace and goodwill in which the greatness of this small nation of Great Britain can play a noble and wonderful part in the future. The Government have a great opportunity not of destruction but of construction throughout the world—an opportunity to lead mankind not to the grave but to the higher pinnacle of civilisation. Let the Government give it a trial. Let them be resolute. I say to them: "Do not shillyshally and mess about, as we have seen various Governments do in the last twenty years; be resolute and strong. Believe in the Christian faith. Believe in the peace and security of mankind, and you will do a service not only to yourselves but to prosperity."

7.51 p.m.

Mr. Brian Harrison: I think the whole House has been extremely impressed by the sincerity of the hon. Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. W. Baxter). He put forward a case with considerable vehemence and one which we must respect, because obviously the views that he expressed are deeply and intensely held.
I wish, however, that he would accept the fact that some people who express opposite views hold them equally intensely and are not charlatans as he rather implied. I wish he would accept that some of us believe sincerely that a Polaris base in Scotland can help to deter other people from taking the risks of war. Though, as the hon. Gentleman said, it might not save a single person after a war had started, it might well contribute to a war not starting at all, and as such it is a very useful contribution to the prevention of war, which is the first objective.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Would the hon. Gentleman say the same of the 100-megaton bomb which Russia has?

Mr. Harrison: No, I would not say that, for this reason. I do not think that it is necessary for the Russians to have a deterrent against the West because I do not believe that the West is going to use any of its weapons in an aggressive manner. Consequently, I think that the flaunting of this series of explosions—and here again the hon. Gentleman seems to have things rather upside down—which broke a truce which had been carried on for a number of years whilst negotiations proceeded in order to get agreement on a test ban and ultimately nuclear disarmament—

Mr. W. Baxter: I am aware that the truce was broken by Russia, but I referred to the whole sequence of tests since the bomb was invented. We cannot look at this question against the background of just a few years. We should consider it from the time when the first bomb was invented.

Mr. Harrison: I take the hon. Gentleman's point, but it does not alter the contention that it was a breach of a truce which was one of the most hopeful occasions we have had of getting a nuclear agreement.
To turn to the Defence White Paper which we are debating today, I think it is useful, as when one is reviewing a novel, to read the last chapter first.

Mr. John Rankin: But it is not a novel.

Mr. Harrison: In some ways I think it is quite novel. In paragraph 51 I see the words:

A long-term plan is essential if the best use is to be made of man-power and resources.
With this sentence I am in complete and absolute agreement. I only wish that I could say that I was in agreement with some other parts of the White Paper. My right hon. Friend, in introducing the White Paper, said that it contained the plans for the 1960s and, in fact, for the 1970s, and that many of these plans related to a long time ahead. That is most encouraging. I wish that I felt confident that this programming that he mentioned and the essential nature of a long-term plan which is referred to at the conclusion of this document had been carried through to a logical conclusion.
I think it was my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Aubrey Jones) who pointed out the geometric progression, as it were, of the cost of developing these mobile fleet trains or mobile strike forces. He also pointed out how essential it is to decide which bases we should have and where they should be. I have studied this White Paper with a great deal of care to try to get some indication of what the policy is. It is possible that this White Paper is much cleverer than is apparent on first reading.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: I doubt it.

Mr. Harrison: It covers up this big change from the policy of my right hon. Friend who is now Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations to the present and more practical plan. It is the sort of White Paper that may well cover up our withdrawal from many of our bases and responsibilities, and at a date not too far ahead.
When I was reading about the bases I was reminded of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Air who spent so long and was responsible for such brilliant negotiations in Cyprus to enable us to maintain forces on that island which was a vital area for our defence. It started off as a counterpart to the Suez Canal base. I now see that
Cyprus remains, primarily, an air base …
That is approximately all that we have left of the base in Cyprus which once was regarded as so very essential, for which we had to fight and which then was the subject of one of these long and involved negotiations in which my right hon. Friend took part so skilfully.
There are other areas in which we have an interest. We have an interest in various theatres—in Europe, the Near East, the Middle East and the Far East. But the trouble at the moment is that if we are going to use our forces in connection with the responsibilities that we have in those areas, we shall need forces considerably in excess of those which are planned in this White Paper. It may be that the cleverness of the White Paper—by the scaling down and its mentioning of the various bases which will be required—is just a part of a larger cover-up. Perhaps, therefore, we are pulling in our horns and limiting ourselves to two basic responsibilities; something based probably in the Indian Ocean and something based on this country.
We must realise the implications of this. If, for example, we are to base our European contribution on this country let us not forget that the biggest and strongest European Power will be Germany. It will not be long before Germany will be of such a strength that she will be very heavily upsetting the balance within N.A.T.O. and will be having an influence far in excess of anything that was originally considered when it was decided that Germany should be admitted as an active member of N.A.T.O.
On the other side, in the Indian Ocean area, I suppose that it will be possible to maintain a base for some time in Singapore. The economics may weigh with the Government of greater Malaysia, but experience has shown that economics do not count where sovereignty is concerned with Governments of newly-emergent countries. We have seen that in many areas of the world and we are seeing it now in Kenya, in Kahawa which, when I returned from there two years ago, I regarded as most depressing because it looked obvious, at that time, that we intended to withdraw from Kenya. After all, we were spending so much money there. That has happened with so many of our bases. We have developed them, spent large sums of money on them and, no sooner have we built them up than we have left.
Thus, it seems that if there is to be self-government in Kenya we shall not be allowed to retain a base there. That leads me to Singapore and Hong Kong.

Hong Kong is a fine gesture and one which is probably very necessary. But it may be necessary to replace the army troops with one of the other services and to increase, if possible—and this is only possible to a certain extent—the civil or colonial police.
Then there is the other big base at Aden, which is of tremendous importance to us. I find it depressing, when we are spending so much money trying to develop our bases, that it looks as though we may be intending to pull out of this area as well.

Mr. Rankin: Why?

Mr. Harrison: Because it has happened with other bases. We have spent a lot of money on them, such as the Suez Canal base and Cyprus, and as soon as the money has been spent we pull out. Aden, which is a most useful base now, is dependent entirely on a successful political settlement with the West Aden Protectorate. The people there are very pro-British at the present time, and we have been extremely well served by successive Governors and by the political officers who have been there. It has been entirely due to their skill that we are still in the area.
But it is dependent also on people who are just as skilful being there in the future. I hope that if there is a unification between the Colony of Aden and the West Aden Protectorate, which is a possibility, and they combine their legislatures, it is made clear that, if we are to continue to exert a useful influence in the area, we shall be up to date in our attitude.

Mr. Paget: Would the hon. Gentleman agree that the position is roughly this; one can probably go on maintaining oneself so long as all the locals are fighting among themselves, but if they make peace among themselves they kick us out?

Mr. Harrison: There is a certain amount of truth in that, because Britain has been extremely successful in bringing peace to a number of these areas.

Mr. Paget: That is why we are out.

Mr. Harrison: And it has often been to our own disadvantage. Considering the Far East and such influence as we may wish to exert in the Indian


Ocean, we must look towards Australia or Australasia with two objects in mind; firstly, to establishing some form of agreement with those countries and, in turn, some form of base, and, secondly, to implicate them as much as possible in the defence of those areas. In saying that, I should remind my right hon. Friend that Australia has taken a line which is completely different to anything that has happened before, for this is the first time that Australian troops have been outside Australian territory in peace time.
While Australia's proportion of her national income being spent on defence is extremely small, they have made a step forward in realising that they have some other responsibilities. This highlights something that happened the other day. I have no doubt that my right hon. Friend had the closest consultations with the Australian Government about the amalgamation in Singapore. But what went wrong? It was simply that my right hon. Friend did not appear to have had those sort of consultations. It was a great pity that the representative from his Department, General Festing, did not have a round-the-world ticket. Instead of calling in on Australia to advise about what he was doing, he came back.
This is a small but important point, because it gave the Australian Press, and some of the newspapers here, a chance to be critical and to say that Australia was not consulted. If we are to depend more and more on Australia or on Australasia in this area it is important that we get them, as it were, on our side.
I said earlier that I did not believe that the statement on defence which we are discussing was a very good one because I did not see how the objectives in it could be carried out with the forces available. For brevity, I will merely say that I wholeheartedly support what was stated by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hall Green about our nuclear deterrent and military forces. It is unnecessary and ineffective for us to have an independent nuclear deterrent today. If we are going to undertake our responsibilities and appear to be undertaking them—because most of this deterrent business is appearance—we shall have to look again very carefully at our manpower problems and, possibly, reintroduce some form of selective service.
I find this Statement on Defence depressing, unless it is a cover up for a big reorganisation. If it is, my right hon. Friend may have my full support—Which, I am sure, will be a surprise to him—but I shall have to wait until I hear the winding-up speeches before deciding whether I am able to support the Government on this White Paper.

8.10 p.m.

Mr. James Boyden: I am sorry that the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr. B. Harrison) did not spell out the cost of the defence and foreign policy blunders of the Government in Cyprus, Kenya and other places. I propose to limit my sights to a fairly narrow range of the White Paper, partly because it is exceptionally difficult for a back bencher to deal with some of the high flights of policy, and partly because the section I wish to consider, the research and development paragraphs, indicates a striking turn of Government policy if it is linked with the Report of the Committee on the Management and Control of Research and Development.
The Committee on the Management and Control of Research and Development is an expert Committee which, like expert committees, uses moderate language but implies devastating criticism. I disagree very much with the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) when he suggests that it is a virtue in the Minister of Defence that he is now including the recommendations of the Zuckerman Committee in the White Paper. What it really means is that for many years under a Tory Government faults have multiplied but Ministers have done nothing about them.
Government by committee is bad enough anyhow, and the present Government are notoriously good at postponing decisions and causing delay in social policy by proliferating committees. It is their recognised technique in education. In secondary education, for instance, they are waiting for Robbins. In defence, it seems that they are waiting for Zuckerman. In defence matters, this is all the more serious, because the vested interests and conservatism of the Chiefs of Staff go rolling on—

Mr. Watkinson: I take it that the hon. Gentleman realises that the man he is talking about is my Chief Scientific Adviser?

Mr. Boyden: Yes, and I should have thought that the Minister's Chief Scientific Adviser would have given him some tips about these matters and the way they were going as the committee was sitting, and that the right hon. Gentleman would have consulted him and his predecessor long before this. Be that as it may, the situation, on the figures alone, should have warranted a much more active consideration of these questions from the Minister's own point of view. It is noticeable that, in the very year in which Six Claude Gibb was asked to take the chair of the Committee, the costs of research and development began to rise. They have gone on rising remarkably ever since, and it is only now, at the peak of the cost, that the right hon. Gentleman reports to the House that he is accepting seventeen of the Committee's suggestions.
I know very well that it is said in the Report that some of the things suggested were current practice in the Department while the Report was being prepared, but the fact remains that, in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg), the Minister published in HANSARD of 1st March this year, at columns 181–82, a table showing that, whereas the pay of Service and Reserve personnel in each year from 1958 until the Estimates for 1962–63 remained substantially the same, at about £350 million—we have just had the announcement that this is to go up by another £14 million—in the same five years production and research expenditure was as follows: in 1958, £526 million, and in 1959, £557 million. The provisional expenditure for 1960–61 was £624 million, and the estimated expenditure for 1961–62 was £682 million. The estimate for 1962–63 is £705 million.
If these mounting figures have not been enough to alert the right hon. Gentleman and his advisers to this problem a long time ago, they ought to have been because, in addition, there have been the debates in the House and the facts which have emerged from the Reports of the Public Accounts Committee. In the debate which took place in the Chamber only last year, all manner of criticisms were made, as they have been made today by my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, about what this; expenditure has been for. It

appears that not only the actual articles delivered from the research projects have been faulty, but the methods themselves have been faulty, too.
It would have been very much better if the right hon. Gentleman had asked Sir Claude Gibb—to whom we on Tyne-side pay great tribute for his drive and knowledge of industry—to consult individual specialists and report direct to him or, after Sir Claude Gibb's death, ask Sir Solly Zuckerman to do this. Government by committee brings forth the lowest common multiple of opinion. The average expert is a very modest man. When he sits round a table, he is inclined to agree with his colleagues about a little more or a little less, so that the collective opinion is nothing like as valid as the direct opinion of one man with responsibility on his shoulders who has consulted other experts and who passes the responsibility to the man on whom it should lie, namely, the Minister of Defence. Government by committee is bad enough in the social sciences, but it is shocking in executive action on defence. The mounting figures for research and development and the resultant deliveries are a great condemnation of the Government's methods in this respect.
Before taking up several of the criticisms which the Zuckerman Committee has made and relating them to some of the criticisms brought out by the Estimates Committee or the Public Accounts Committee, I wish to refer to what seems to me to be one of the major difficulties which the party opposite has in coming to radical conclusions about these matters. Hon. and right hon. Members opposite are very hesitant to come to the sort of conclusion which, say, the Plowden Committee reached, although they come to it finally under the pressure of economic stringency. Where the Services are concerned, they are very tender indeed about the vested interests of the Services.
I have in mind a matter about which I have had no satisfaction from the Secretary of State for Air, namely, the Royal Air Force Ceremonial Unit, now the Queen's Colour Squadron, to give it the more respectable title it has had since I began to ask questions about it. This unit with its 135 men and its


annual cost of £70,000, has a higher priority in our present state of affairs than schools in Sheldon in my constituency or, if it comes to that, the remodelling of schools in Middlesbrough. This should not be so. If we wish to impress dignitaries who come to this country, it is better to impress them with our industry, our education service and valuable things of that kind than by a lot of flag waving. I know that the Squadron's functions are a little wider than that, but those are the priorities, and any suggestions of mine about economies are of no avail because the basic fact is that right hon. and hon. Members opposite regard such things as of greater importance than schools for the ordinary working-class child.
The criticisms of method contained in the Zuckerman Report run right through the Services. In paragraph 193, for example, there is a criticism of the short tour of general duties officers at headquarters. The Estimates Committee commented on this at Admiralty headquarters some time ago. Only now a statement appears that something has been done. It must have been obvious to anyone that this was a common weakness in the Service contribution to the planning of research, of expenditure and allied matters. The Report says that it is obvious that general duties officers are not on the whole suitable without special training or special experience—there are certain exceptions; I know some myself—for this kind of complicated economic planning. It is only now, when this suggestion is put forward, that the right hon. Gentleman accepts it.
The Plowden Committee recommends—this must have been on the stocks for some years—that it is highly desirable that the people in the spending Departments who spend money should be associated with the controlling of the money rather than rely on checks from the Treasury. Indeed, I myself have several times heard evidence given to the Estimates Committee saying that the proper method of financial control is to get officers in spending Departments associated with the processes.
Two years ago, an Estimates Committee report suggested that this should apply to military, scientific and engineering

experts in relation to their expenditure. I remember that it was stated that the Director of Naval Construction at the Admiralty had never himself been to any discussions with the Treasury about Admiralty shipbuilding. Some of his junior staff had been and he himself said in evidence that this had proved very beneficial to them. But he himself had never been. This, I understand, is to be changed.
The Director is in the same position as the Admiralty letters patent, which permit the Admiralty not to be submitted to Treasury control in many matters relating to shipbuilding. The letters patent date from the reign of James II. A lot of things have happened to the Constitution since then. Is the proposed streamlining to affect the letters patent in relation to Treasury control? I would like to read the section of the Estimates Committee's Report which dealt with this matter:
The attention of the Sub-Committee was drawn to the existence of Letters Patent issued to the Board of Admiralty, the terms of which have remained the same since the reign of James II, which restrict the requirement of Treasury consent to 'all cases where such consent has heretofore been required'. A Treasury witness informed them that 'this leaves a very wide field of expenditure completely free from Treasury control' and that while 'it is very difficult for the Treasury to attack', the question of this apparent privilege 'is being actively pursued at the moment'.
The Estimates Committee somewhat mildly hoped that the letters patent would not be used to obstruct the Treasury in its efforts to have control over the reserve fleet. That was written in 1957. I am sure that there are other dark recesses in the Admiralty like that. When I was at the Admiralty it was said that if Nelson could come back to the Stores Department at Portsmouth he would find his bag just where he had left it. There may be some libel in that statement, but there is an element of truth in it.
In the streamlining of research and development, it would be a good thing if the Defence Minister and the three Service Ministers were to probe into some of these dark recesses. Indeed, in another report of the Estimates Committee there is a recommendation that the Admiralty headquarters is too complicated. The Admiralty very dutifully has said that it would look into the


matter and do something to uncomplicate it. The organisation of the Admiralty has been too complicated for a very long time. In these days of difficulties and restrictions, and in view of the proposed streamlining, it behoves all the Defence Departments to probe into their dark corners.
A parallel criticism concerns lack of co-operation between technical departments. The Zuckerman Committee said it had been informed that lack of coordination had lead to delays and difficulties, and it also drew attention to the inadequate co-operation between the Services, adding that it did not consider that the Minister of Defence had been using the powers he possessed to co-ordinate adequately.
My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) made reference to the cloud before us getting a little bigger with regard to uniformity in the Armed Forces and the sharing of common services. But we do not seem to have got much further. The Zuckerman Committee refers to the duty of the Minister to co-ordinate. It says:
The Minister of Defence is 'in charge of the formulation and general application of a unified policy relating to the Armed Forces of the Crown as a whole and their requirements'. In the discharge of that reponsibility the Minister of Defence has authority to decide (subject to the responsibilities of the Cabinet and its Defence Committee) all major matters of defence policy affecting, among other things, defence research and development. He also has the duty to take, after consultation with the Service Ministers concerned 'all practical steps to secure the most efficient and economical performance of functions common to two or more of the Services.' 
This has been part of his duties for a long time, but the Committee again comments on the lack of co-ordination between Departmental technical heads and between the Services. It also says that there is a lack of a sense of economy. The Report says baldly—
In meeting the ever-changing operational needs, the best is too often the enemy of the good.
That comes out many times in the Report. I have not the time to go into details, but it suggests that there is far too finicky a discussion of operational need and fax too little responsibility taken by the Minister of Defence to see that these things are dealt with.
The Zuckerman Report is not something which the Minister can be pleased

about. It reveals, instead, a scandalous situation. Scientists are not apt to express themselves in the language used by hon. Members, and when they express criticisms in such language as this, then those criticisms are scathing. The right hon. Gentleman may say that some of these faults go back fifteen years to the Labour Government. Even so, however, in apportioning responsibility we can give one-third to the Labour Government and two-thirds to the present Government. But the fact remains that these criticisms are there.
Two particular criticisms are made not by an expert committee but by the Estimates Committee. The right hon. Gentleman will remember the row in the House when the Army Reserve Bill turned up without an adequate Financial and Explanatory Memorandum. The matter was taken up by the Estimates Committee and it made a fairly strong recommendation about the failure of the Treasury and the War Office adequately to consider the Bill's financial implications.
It may have been a mistake. It may have been that the Treasury on that occasion slipped up. But it is remarkable that, despite this experience, the latest report of the Estimates Committee, dealing with the Spring Supplementary Estimates, still contains severe criticisms of the War Office estimates in relation to barracks and other things, and to its failure adequately to fulfil its building programme. There are a series of criticisms of the methods used by the War Office in relation to estimating.
Finally, there is similar criticism of the Ministry of Aviation in relation to the estimating for and delivery of new air frames. In 1959–60 its Estimates were overspent by 11 per cent., totalling £4·6 million. In 1960–61 the overspending was 19 per cent., at £7·5 million. In 1961–62 the Ministry at least had the merit of maintaining the same percentage. It overspent by 19 per cent. again, a total this time of £8·3 million. The Estimates Committee says that the whole system of procurement should be reviewed immediately.
None of these things proposed in isolation may be so very serious—although it is very serious when a Ministry cannot estimate accurately and when a Minister


of Defence just slaps a £28 million Supplementary Estimate on the table in passing—but they reveal an indifference to accounting and financing which the Zuckerman Committee is driving home, and which As too common in the Service Departments. If there is justification for an energetic Minister of Defence, it is to be found in this aspect alone, as is shown by the Estimates Committee on the one hand and the Zuckerman Committee of experts on the other.
I conclude with another quotation from the Zuckerman Committee:
… a common fault in the past has been to allow projects to drift from one stage to another without strict control at critical points.
Although I had not intended to widen my argument to include this, I would say that the whole policy of the Ministry of Defence has been to drift in strategy, tactics and methods.

8.30 p.m.

Mr. Neil Marten: Like my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr. B. Harrison), I should like to start at the back of the White Paper by referring to civil defence, a subject which so far has been mentioned only once, by the hon. Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. W. Baxter). Paragraph 49 of the White Paper tells us that recruiting is rising. It rose last year by 15,000. We must, however, look into the deep shelter where the figures are kept to see whether they are realistic.
The numbers involved do not include enough of the people who will be really on the job at the vital time. I refer to the wardens. To take an example from the county the northern part of which I represent, Oxfordshire has a war establishment of 3,743 civil defence personnel and it has recruited 1,538. It might be said that to have reached this figure at this stage is not bad. When, however, we examine the position concerning wardens, which I believe to be an important aspect of civil defence, we find that although their war establishment is 1,021, only 191 have been recruited, of whom 81 are non-active. The wardens, therefore, have fulfilled their war establishment by only 11 per cent. This is a serious situation.
In the nuclear age, one must surely believe in survival, and survival is essential if we are to hit back. The Campaign

for Nuclear Disarmament is doing its very best to discourage recruiting for civil defence, but I believe that an efficent civil defence is essential for our deterrent. The ability to survive hangs, in a way, on civil defence as does our ability to strike back. This is all part of our whole deterrent. As we know, it strengthens the hand of the Foreign Secretary when he goes into negotiations when those with whom he negotiates realise that we can survive a nuclear attack.
It is often said that civil defence would be useful in a national emergency or calamity, such as, for example, a nuclear power station blowing up. I, therefore, ask the Government to treat this matter with a greater sense of urgency and to build up our civil defence forces. I make the suggestion that the Government might consider some form of compulsory training system for school leavers, making them serve a certain number of hours—not many—a year and being paid for doing so. They might also encourage the schools to give more instruction, or to give instruction where none is given, in civil defence.
There is scope for modernising our recruiting methods. I do not mean that the Government should engage firms who specialise in glossy public relations documents. I have, however, received from my local borough council the latest recruiting pamphlet, which brings back memories of the last war. The people whose photographs appear in it are getting on past middle age and are wearing the same shape of steel helmet as we wore during the last war. I believe that it could be modernised more in the style of the space helmet. In the pictures in the pamphlet, people can be seen dancing—the waltz. My suggestion is that they should be dancing the twist.
I turn now to the question of overseas bases. As has been said frequently in this debate, the White Paper indicates that there is to be a reshuffle of the strength at our various bases in the light of the changing strategy which inevitably takes place in defence. This country, with its great traditions, should not in any way regard this as a policy of scuttle, because that is not what it is. What it means is that in the light of modern developments we can afford to reshuffle the pack and to have fewer


people at a certain place; but that does not mean that we are any the less effective there.
It is essential to realise that if a base is to be effective, we must not rely upon the good will of the local Government. Therefore, I am inclined to query the confidence shown by the Government in the White Paper concerning the base at Singapore, which inevitably, whatever happens, whether or not the creation of Malaysia comes about, will come under some form of local political pressure. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon, I believe that we should look towards Australasia for a new full-scale base, which would, however, require some sort of advance landing field, of the Gan type, in a position forward from the Australian coast. I say this not because of any disrespect for the politicians in the area, whether in Singapore or in Malaysia, but because, having been there, I always have a great fear of the pressures which China might exert on the area, either directly as a major Power or through the overseas Chinese who are in those countries.
When a country achieves independence, the first thing that it wants to do is to assert its independence. It does not want to be subservient to either the Eastern or the Western bloc. We must realise, too, that a newly-independent country does not want to become involved in a major wax of one of the major Power blocs. If, however, we as the former colonial Power retain our bases in newly independent countries in which we have been the colonial Power, we will give the impression of retaining our colonial status in a different disguise. It would be awkward for a newly-independent country as, inevitably, it tried to join up with other blocs—an East African bloc, for example, or something similiar—to have a base of the former colonial Power in its newly-independent territory.
If we were to withdraw on our own initiative without being forced out, I believe that we should maintain the good will of the countries concerned. The pendulum would swing against us to begin with, but ultimately, if we maintained the good will, it would swing back towards us. We can, of course, negotiate for transit facilities and staging posts there and perhaps even a base once

we have granted them their independence and once they have asserted it and the pendulum has swung back.
I believe that this not only applies to Singapore and to Kenya but that it might well apply to Aden under the pressure of Arab nationalism. We have to realise that and we have to cast our minds about all the time for alternatives On this point there is nothing to be gained by leaving these bases prematurely. Using the example of British Guiana, it has to be remembered that Dr. Jagan in December told the United Nations that only Britain's armed might prevented him from proclaiming freedom, but after our withdrawal he had to call back British troops to restore that very order and freedom. I am not criticising Dr. Jagan. I am saying this in the hope that, by saying it here, it may be heard by countries who are at the moment saying much the same sort of thing about us—that "it is Britain's armed might that is preventing their gaining their independence."
Finally, and at rather greater length, I should like to deal with the Opposition's charge that our policy is weakening N.A.T.O. As I understand it, the charge is that if we station some of our N.A.T.O.-committed troops in the United Kingdom to save foreign currency we damage N.A.T.O. What could be worse for N.A.T.O. than an economically weak Britain? This would lead, as we have seen in the past, to chopping and changing our forces and our disposition and, worst of all, our policy.
We have, therefore, two options in this matter. One is to bring back some troops to the United Kingdom and have, as a result, a stronger balance of payments position. The other is to put all the troops that perhaps we should put into N.A.T.O. and risk having a weaker balance of payments position. I believe that the stationing of these troops in the United Kingdom is not contrary to the whole conception of N.A.T.O. After all, they would be only half an hour's flying distance away from Europe.

Mr. Paget: Surely this balance of payments problem applies to all troops abroad, whether in Germany or not. Since they have to be fed and housed and served anyway and they make the same call upon the Services, the defence


of the West ought not to depend on which column we put the expenses into.

Mr. Marten: I was about to come to the first part of the hon. and learned Member's question, but I do not agree with his point about expenditure in Germany. I was saying that the stationing of troops in the United Kingdom was not absolutely fatal because they were only half an hour's flying distance away. I believe that is a perfectly fair point.
I say with respect to hon. Members opposite that they must try to get away from the philosophy or perhaps the memories of the troop train, the baggage master, the Harwich to Hook train and N.A.A.F.I. tea every ten miles. Now we have our jet aircraft, let us use them and have our troops back here where assuredly it would be better for our balance of payments. I admit the point that any troops overseas affect the balance of payments, but the major part of our troops are involved in N.A.T.O. and stationing some of them here would be a great saving to the balance of payments, particularly in D-marks.
Any defence policy involves a risk, but I believe that having the troops in the United Kingdom is an acceptable risk because the economic strength of the country is vital to world peace. After all, this is not a debate about N.A.T.O. and its limited area. It is a debate about world peace.

Mr. Gordon Walker: A debate about the White Paper.

Mr. Marten: The Defence White Paper is about keeping world peace, in my view, though the right hon. Member may not agree.
We can have a strong foreign policy only if we have a strong economy. Aid to newly-developed countries can be given only if we have a strong economy, and our aid to those countries is just as much a contribution to N.A.T.O. as having more forces stationed in Germany would be. I would say, therefore, that if the stationing of some of our troops in Britain equals a strong economy then I am for taking that slight risk.
I felt that in making their case the Opposition did not attach sufficient importance to our world-wide commitments. We have these commitments, and

the N.A.T.O. area is not our only vital area. We have Commonwealth defence obligations. We have our obligations in the Far East, and above all, a great strategic area in the Middle East. I want to dwell on this area for a few moments, because it is here that we have our oil, and our Commonwealth communications run through the area. None of the other N.A.T.O. countries in Europe have these commitments. We have them, and we must honour them, and in honouring them I believe that we will make a great contribution to world peace, and therefore a great contribution to N.A.T.O.
Some people advocate handing over the independent British nuclear deterrent to N.A.T.O. I should like to consider our position in the Middle East if we did so. I am thinking particularly of those who think far too much of Europe and of N.A.T.O. Our interests in the Middle East are in oil and communications. Our policy is clearly to maintain stability there, and with it, of course, to raise the standard of living there. The policy of our enemies must be to deny us that oil in the Middle East, and to drive through it to cut our communications with the Commonwealth, and ultimately to drive on to Africa to deny us the raw materials from that country.
What stops an aggressor from going through this vital British area? I stress those words "vital British area". It is not, surely, our small conventional forces which deter a potential enemy? Even if we doubled our trebled our forces there they would not deter an enemy from driving through. It is the fear that any involvement with British conventional forces in our vital area might develop into a nuclear war, and it is the knowledge that an attack could bring an instant nuclear retaliation from Britain that keeps the peace. If an enemy once doubted that we would counter-attack immediately, I believe that he might risk a conventional attack on us.

Mr. P. Noel-Baker: Will the hon. Gentleman be more explicit and say how the counter-attack would come? Would it be directed at places and territories in the Middle East, or behind an enemy's frontier?

Mr. Marten: That, I think, is a matter for the aggressor to judge. I do not


know how it would come. I could hazard a guess, and so could the right hon. Gentleman, but I do not know how it would come. I assume, however, that it would come, and come very quickly and very hard. I believe that the fact that we are able to say this stops an aggressor coming down on us.

Mr. Rankin: If the hon. Gentleman is not sure how the attack would come from this potential enemy, how does he propose to prepare his defences?

Mr. Marten: I am saying that I am not sure. It is for the Government and the Services to prepare their defences. I was asked how I saw the attack coming. I leave that to those in control at the time.

Mr. Rankin: Is the hon. Gentleman convinced that the Minister of Defence knows of any source of attack?

Mr. Marten: I have every confidence in my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Bellenger: Right or wrong, my Minister.

Mr. Marten: I was saying that I would not leave an enemy in any doubt that we would counter-attack instantly. But this doubt would surely arise if we handed over our deterrent to N.A.T.O. What guarantee have we that N.A.T.O. would back us if the attack was in an area vital only to Britain? If the nuclear deterrent were handed over to N.A.T.O., the decision to use it would have to come from a number of countries, many of which have no experience in the Middle East; many of which have little interest in the Middle East; and some of which might indeed wish to see a local defeat inflicted on our British interests there.
Therefore, in certain circumstances the aggressor would be in considerable doubt whether we would be backed up by N.A.T.O. He might be tempted to bully us, calculating that the risk was worth while, and that we might not be sure of having the backing of N.A.T.O. to the extent of using the deterrent. In that case we would surely have to yield, simply because we had surrendered out independent deterrent to N.A.T.O.

Mr. Rankin: Speculation.

Mr. Marten: Yes—it is what we are engaged in. If that happened, with it

would go vital British communications and oil supplies. But as long as we have our independent deterrent that is unlikely to happen.
Professor Blackett wrote a letter to The Times on 26th January advocating sharing our deterrent with the United States of America, on the "double safety catch" basis, as he called it. An exactly similar situation might arise there as in the case of N.A.T.O. According to Professor Blackett we should share our nuclear deterrent with America, but if something happened to make us want to use it and the Americans did not agree that it should be used, we should be in the same position as with N.A.T.O. There would not, in fact, be an independent British deterrent.
Our relations with America are good, and I hope that they will remain good, but there is no guarantee that they will. The Americans would like us to give up our deterrent to N.A.T.O. and come under the American shield. America might think it much better if we were no longer a great nuclear Power. It would be neater and tidier for N.A.T.O., too, if we were no longer an independent nuclear Power, but came within the N.A.T.O. command. But this would be a policy of complete surrender. Britain is still the second greatest military Power in the Western world. I know that defence changes from year to year, and it may be inevitable that some such arrangement will have to be made ultimately, but that time is not yet here for a considerable time.
Many of the suggestions that we should give up or share our independent nuclear deterrent are put forward in the hope that others will give up the idea of possessing their own deterrents. There is little hope of this happening, in the long run. I believe that in future those countries which can afford to have an independent nuclear deterrent may well have it. For example, if we hand over our independent deterrent to N.A.T.O., is it to be thought that China will give up all attempts to possess her own deterrent? Again, if we share control of our deterrent with America, does anybody think that China will share hers with Russia, on a "double safety catch" basis? I do not think for one moment that that will happen, and I believe that people who think on those lines are out of touch with reality.
Let us suppose that we follow the advice of the Opposition and share our deterrent with N.A.T.O. and, as a result, are able to increase our conventional forces in the Middle East. If a limited war broke out there, and, with our trebled conventional forces, we were able to push the Russians back to their border, is it to be thought that they would accept defeat from our conventional forces? Of course not. Since we had no independent nuclear deterrent they would threaten us with the use of theirs and they would win the war either by using it or threatening to do so. We should be forced to surrender.
If our major strategic interest was limited to Britain's helping to back just the limited N.A.T.O. area there might be some point in straining to keep all our forces in Europe, but the major interest of Britain goes wider than N.A.T.O. It is to keep world peace, by all means. We are a world Power. The Government are correct in their policy of keeping an independent nuclear deterrent, because to give it up would be to encourage potential aggressors. In my opinion, it would not serve the cause of world peace at all. It would lose for us our influence in the world and it would place us in dependency on the United States.
Lastly, it would put us, I believe, in the very position in which Russia wants us to be. If, for example, we followed the advice of the campaigners for nuclear disarmament—there are many hon. Members opposite who seem to be supporting them—and the advice contained in Motions put down on the Order Paper in this House by hon. Members opposite, we should be doing exactly what the Russians want and that I, for one, would deplore. Therefore, I congratulate the Government on their White Paper and their determination to stick with an independent nuclear deterrent.

8.56 p.m.

Mr. R. T. Paget: I do not know whether the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Marten) really believes that, with or without our independent nuclear deterrent, we are capable of fighting Russia in the Middle East, or anywhere else, without American assistance. If he does, I hope it is not the

opinion of the Government, because it would be very worrying if it were. To come to a more serious point which was made by the hon. Gentleman; whether, if the nuclear power were confined to two Powers, it could remain so confined. I do not propose to go into that at length, but I believe that the Russians and Americans could still come together and say, "In the leadership of the world we are going to confine the nuclear power to ourselves" and I think that the whole future of the world may depend upon their doing it. However, that is a different question, and I do not propose to go further into it.
The Minister of Defence seemed to make two claims with pride about the achievements of the Government. The first related to recruiting. I found it a little unfortunate that the right hon. Gentleman should proclaim this achievement at the same time as he announced his intention to default on the terms on which he obtained those recruits. Every one of the men who within the last four years engaged or re-engaged did so upon the basis of a promise of biennial pay reviews on a stated basis. They are entitled to an increase of between 7 per cent. and 8 per cent. The right hon. Gentleman says that the Services would not wish to be exempt from any cuts. I invite him to ask them.
I invite him to ask the men whom he defrauded whether they are prepared to sacrifice half of a year's rise, which is what he is asking them to do. If they agree, well and good. If not, let the right hon. Gentleman pay to them what is due to them upon their contract and upon the basis on which they were engaged. If he is not going to do this, since the terms on which their recruitment or re-engagement are being unilaterally repudiated, may we take it that any volunteer unwilling to accept these new terms will be offered a free discharge? He is plainly entitled to it. I hope that we may have an answer from the Government on this matter. If we obtain recruits upon the basis of a solid offer and then repudiate it unilaterally, in honour we are morally obliged to extend to those who accept the offer the right to withdraw from it.
The second point upon which the right hon. Gentleman prided himself seemed oddly selected. It was our achievement


in weapons and equipment. We remember the cancelled Blue Streak. My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) dealt faithfully with our aeroplane programme. I do not know if the right hon. Gentleman read yesterday's Sunday Times, a newspaper which does not usually support us. It said:
After 15 years of research and development and the expenditure of the prodigious sum of of more than £700 million. Britain has four missiles of her own …
She had
to adopt six American weapons, two French and one Australian … Generally, the history is one of continuous muddle, waste, crass thinking and internal and industrial jealousies.
The four missiles in service include Sea-slug, which is our senior missile for which much has been claimed. Together with the destroyers which are to carry it, it has cost us round about £140 million, which is the cost of nearly three Polaris submarines. It is a perfectly splendid weapon, if only someone had not invented a stand-off bomb; but, as unfortunately its range is considerably less than that of a stand-off bomb, it is not likely to be very useful.
As one goes on this seems to be equally the record of our other weapons. For instance,' apart from developing weapons against high-flying bombers with a direct-drop bomb, which we are unlikely to see very much of in future, we have just cancelled development of the PR 428, which is designed to deal with the low-flying bomber and the Pandora, the contour-hugging air-launched missile planned for TSR 2, the R.A.F. low-level attack plane. These are abandoned. Then Blue Water, probably the best surface-to-surface weapon, as the American sales power behind Sergeant has become available, has been pushed out and we are probably having to stop that too. The general record is summed up, again in the Sunday Times of yesterday. After dealing with this, it says:
The list could be extended. No one in the industry any longer has faith in Government policy. No one in the Services has enough faith in the results of the Government policy. No lay observer has any faith at all".
That is the Government's weapon policy which they have chosen to select as one of the two features within their defence policy on which they could take pride. It has been the story of staggering waste.
The last time I spoke in a general defence debate—it has not been for lack of trying and I have spoken in many Estimates debates—was many years ago when I was on the other side of the House. It was in the pre-Korean debate. On that occasion, after reviewing my Government's performance I used these words:
Never in the whole history of armaments has so much money purchased so little defence.
That was a phrase which obtained a certain infamous notoriety by being included in the Conservative Party's convenient quotes.
Nonetheless, it is interesting to compare the Estimates about which I was then speaking with the Estimates which we are considering now. In 1950 the total cost was £780 million, rather less than half the total of the Estimates now being passed. The Navy had six major units, 16 cruisers and 94 destroyers and frigates. Today there are three major units, four cruisers and two commando carriers and 54 destroyers and frigates—about half.

Mr. Watkinson: All modern.

Mr. Paget: They were modern then, too. The Army had 380,000 men. It now has rather less than half—180,000.

The Minister of Aviation (Mr. Peter Thorneycroft): All modern.

Mr. Paget: The Air Force had nearly four times the present number of frontline planes. No doubt we shall be told that they are all modern and that it is much more expensive today. I agree. The Navy at Jutland was much more expensive than the Navy at Trafalgar. But it was not relatively more powerful nor was it relatively more expensive in terms of the national income. In effect, for twice the money we have half the available power. That is the record of eleven years of Tory Government.
It is not as though this were a universal feature and we were considering an un-co-ordinated general disarmament. This is an achievement by the Government in unilateral disarmament, because during the period in which our strength has effectively diminished by half, everybody else has been increasing in strength. Let us look at our allies. Starting from nothing, Germany has


created a force greatly superior to our own. France is considerably more powerful than she was in 1950. At least in terms of men-at-arms, Italy is way in front of us, again starting from nothing. In Europe, we are scarcely up to the Benelux standard. Of all our allies, the Government can perhaps look for comfort to Portugal. Perhaps Portugal has done no better than we have done.
But let us look where it is perhaps more relevant—at our enemies. While our power under a Tory Government has been halved, armies have been created in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Rumania and East Germany. The first three—in fact, all of them—are considerably greater than that which we are contributing to Europe. If we can still beat the Rumanians, that is only because they are Rumanians.
It is a terrible story. During these years no other nation has had such a terrible decline. I repeat,
Never in the whole history of armaments has so much money purchased so little defence.
But I doubt whether this time the phrase will be included in the Conservative Party notes. What is the cause of this sorry story? I put as the first of the causes over-reliance on nuclear weapons. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the effectiveness of the deterrent as proved in the Middle and Far East. I do not know what on earth he is refering to. Does he really think that the nuclear deterrent deterred people in Kuwait? Does anybody in the Middle East think for one moment that we are going to use our nuclear weapons there? I do not, and I hope that the Government do not.
I hear the Minister of Defence murmuring, "Europe". Does he really think that Europe is deterred by our independent nuclear power? I have never heard such nonsense. We have imagined that hydrogen and atomic bombs were a substitute for conventional power on the spot. They have not been, and they are not.
My objection to our independent nuclear deterrent is not moral. It is not even that nuclear weapons are uniquely destructive. I do not believe that. Nuclear weapons may make destruction faster, but I do not believe that today

we have any greater capacity for destroying cities, men and civilisations than that possessed by Palmaniser or Genghis Khan.
If I do not sometimes share a total enthusiasm for disarmament as a cure-all, it is because I believe that of the engines of war infinitely the most terrible is the mind of man. However crude his weapons, the only real limit to man's capacity to slay, maim and destroy is the limit he sets by his own mind. We may indeed be fortunate in this generation that God has placed before us a mushroom-shaped cloud as a warning of man's capacity for destruction and evil. If this deterrent had not been there, in the last fifteen years I can think of at least six incidents which in other circumstances would have led to war.
Therefore, when I consider our nuclear weapon it is with a mind which is not clouded by emotional considerations. I look at this question absolutely straight. What contribution does our independent deterrent make to our power, to our influence and to our safety? I think it is little and diminishing. I agree with the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Aubrey Jones) that it is a decaying asset. The right hon. Gentleman says this in paragraph 13 of the White Paper:
… our contribution to the Western strategic deterrent remains significant. It is by itself enough to make a potential aggressor fear that our retaliation would inflict destruction beyond any level which he would be prepared to tolerate.
Our independent atomic capacity, our proportion of the Western capacity, I have heard put at 2½ or 3 per cent. I will double it and call it 5 per cent. Nobody will suggest that it is more than that.

Mr. Watkinson: I do not accept that.

Mr. Paget: Shall we call it 10 per cent.? I do not believe for one moment that it is as much as 5 per cent., but let us call it 10 per cent. If 10 per cent. of the West's atomic capacity is sufficient to deter, is not 90 per cent. sufficient?

Mr. Watkinson: I am listening to the hon. and learned Gentleman with great attention and I do not wish to interrupt him, but he is not accepting the fact, which is very well known—and I am not giving away anything here—that Bomber Command, as an integral part


of the striking force of the Strategic Air Command, is of very much greater importance than anything the hon. and learned Gentleman has indicated to the House.

Mr. Paget: I shall suggest that it is very much less, but, for the moment, I am dealing with totals. The totals are certainly less than 5 per cent., but let us assume that they are 10 per cent. If 10 per cent. is enough, is not 90 per cent. enough? When one sees the manifest weaknesses of the West, is it really the best use of our potentiality to add to that part on which we are so over-insured?
That seems to be the first argument, but when one talks even of a 5 per cent. share, that is a share of a first-strike potential. When we come to the second-strike potential—that is, the hit back—I believe that our share is very much less than that, and rapidly disappearing—

Mr. Kershaw: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman allow me—?

Mr. Paget: No, I am sorry. I have not the time.
At this point, Thors are out; they would certainly be struck out by the first Russian strike, if the Russians have the initiative. Our bomber airfields are out; they, again, are perfectly well known, perfectly well pinpointed, and available to the first strike. We are left with that proportion of our force that is airborne, either because it is kept continuously in the air or because is has got off the ground—

Mr. Kershaw: Mr. Kershaw rose—

Mr. Paget: No, I am sorry.
Even dealing with that, how long will that section last if we have satellite surveillance coming? We shall have satellite direction coming—and probably coming before Skybolt emerges. Once that has happened, when the aggressor can choose his own time, he can see our aeroplanes in the air from his satellites, and he has the means of directing his missiles to them. I believe that air dispersal as a means of security and of saving one's second strike has a very short life before it.
If we are going in for an independent deterrent at all, surely it should be

Polaris, but it seems to me that the circumstances in which we would require an atomic deterrent independently of the Americans are so remote, and our other needs so present and so patently obvious that, as I am at present informed, even Polaris—which seems to me to be the only rational deterrent from our point of view—would not rate an adequate priority within our defence scheme.
If we abandon the deterrent, however, what of the Royal Air Force? I shall return to this in a moment, but here, again, I do not think that we can get a rational defence policy planned as a whole while we have three independent Services, each with a vested interest in particular aspects of our plan.
The second major cause of our defence disaster seems to me to be the delusion that we are still a world Power. We have spread round the world in garrisons some 40,000 troops. Those 40,000 troops are missing from our Treaty commitments to Germany—in Europe, where we live, and where we ought to be. They are troops abroad, in any case, so do not let us talk about balance of payments problems. That is accountancy, and should be adjusted. The safety of the West and of the world cannot be committed to the question of where, in which book or column, an entry is made. If we devote the troops, if we devote the proportion of our national income and effort, the particular currency in which it is paid can be adjusted, and I am sure that it will be adjusted.
I believe that these garrisons spread about the world are really protecting interests that we no longer possess with the shadow of a military presence which we can no longer really provide. I am convinced that we have to reconsider our bases policy and concentrate in Europe, where we live, as quickly as we decently can. I emphasise the word "decently" because, of course, we cannot simply scuttle. That word is less popular with hon. Members opposite than it used to be.

Mr. Kershaw: Welch.

Mr. Paget: Yes, welch. I do not mind how hon. Members describe their efforts. We should recognise that our object is to get back here where our force and power are of real importance and where


we ought to be. Obviously, this is a difficult operation. Retreat always is and that is what we are faced with. The fatal error is to compromise our vital positions in Europe by hanging on to our outposts too long. I believe that at the moment and as a first stage the general responsibility for these outposts should be transferred from the Army which is immediately required in Europe to the Navy and the Royal Air Force. At Hong Kong we shall require forces for internal security. These, I believe, could be provided just as well by blue jackets as by brown jobs. If we had some of our cruisers and destroyers in the harbour of Hong Kong, I believe that they would probably be as useful there as anywhere else and contain the men who could come to the assistance of the civil power and learn the job very well. I served with them, and British sailors in support of the civil power are highly effective. So far as we are concerned, I believe that N.A.T.O. is our priority and that is an obligation which we ought to fulfil.
The last cause of our troubles is, I believe, inter-Service competition, which precludes a rational use of our resources. The Royal Air Force has a vested interest in the deterrent. The Navy has a vested interest in the world seaways and in bases. I believe that one has to bring them effectively under control. The Ministry of Defence, from all that we have heard today, is grossly inadequate. It cannot settle policy. At most it can arbitrate between contending Service interests. The Minister of Defence should become Secretary of State for Defence and assume full responsibility to Parliament for defence and supply. The Chief of Staff of the Forces should be head of a staff which comprises, subordinate to him, the Chiefs of Staff of the independent forces. A Defence Council should replace the separate Service Councils, and I think probably, too, that above general and flag rank officers should come on to a common list as suggested by General Jacobs.
As to finance, we had a most valuable speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Boyden). Expenditure is controlled by an Act of 1866. The draft estimates are in theory the financial proposals of the Services. In fact, they are a bid for as large a share

as possible of the lump sum that will later be arbitrarily settled by the Cabinet. The final estimate represents a statement by the Services of the manner in which they propose to spend that part of the lump sum allocated to them in theory by the Minister of Defence but in practice by agreement among themselves. The principal objections to this method are, first, that there is a lack of any rational distinction between capital and current expenditure. Only in married quarters is loan finance available. Planning on a rational basis is difficult and there is no means of spreading capital cost over the life of the article. Defence should have a capital expenditure programme. It imposes a delay in proposals for new expenditure, and it takes at least two years for anything to get into the Estimates, with the result that most of the things which we order are obsolete before they arrive. Also it encourages a backlog and a hand-to-mouth attitude in the Services.
I believe that the Chief of Staff of the Forces should be responsible to the Secretary of State and that the Chiefs of Staff should be responsible to him. We should have a Defence Council. One accounting officer should be responsible for defence expenditure. Defence expenditure is, in fact, settled arbitrarily by the Cabinet on the basis of a lump sum and, therefore, the case for Treasury control is really non-existent. There should be a grant-in-aid and the Minister of Defence should have the right to allocate that expenditure amongst the Services. We require an expert committee which should be drawn from the Services and from industry to review the methods of financial control and particularly to provide for a capital programme. If we did this, I believe that we could begin to build where we left off in about 1950. Our power would begin to increase instead of, as in the last ten years, retract.
I do not agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley. I believe that a volunteer force is that which is required and suits us, but it involves at least being honest with our troops and standing by the contract which we make with them, and I believe it also involves widening our scope of enlistment. After all, we have Commonwealth associates available to us. Even Rommel's best divisions in Africa had 40 per cent. of


foreigners, many of whom could not speak German. In the Army today one man in perhaps eighteen fights. It is not necessary to have drawn from our own people the whole of the men we require.
If we look to our real needs, if we get down to creating a single force properly directed to our real interests, the interests of our alliance in Europe and of our influence on affairs here in Europe where we live, then instead of pretending to past glories I believe we may achieve a future destiny for our country.

Mr. Kershaw: May I know whether that programme which the hon. and learned Gentleman read out so quickly just now is official Labour Party policy or was made up on the spur of the moment?

9.28 p.m.

Sir Arthur Vere Harvey: I am sure that the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) said exactly what he thinks. I must say that I agree more with the latter part of his remarks than the earlier part.
The hon. and learned Gentleman referred to the United States' sales power, and there I am in complete agreement with him. If the Americans did not exert their sales power in demanding orders for equipment, and if war came to this country, we might be in a better position to play our part, as has been suggested by the hon. and learned Gentleman.
I shall refer shortly to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker), but I must first remark on the comments made by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Northampton about the V-bombers. When his remarks are read tomorrow by the aircrews throughout Bomber Command—the cream of the British forces with a very high morale and on a par with anything in the United States—imagine their feelings, after years of having taken many risks, to know that if the Labour Party gets into power their equipment will be gradually faded out.
The hon. and learned Member for Northampton talked about vessels in numbers, balancing the numbers ten years ago with those that exist now. Surely the hon. and learned Gentleman knows better than that. Considering the

modern equipment put into aircraft and naval vessels—costing probably four or five times more than the expenditure ten years ago—one cannot make comparisons in numbers.
I realise that, when we were debating the Army Reserve Bill, the hon. and learned Gentleman pointed out that there was not one soldier, sailor or airman in conflict today. That is the whole point. That is why we have spent millions of pounds—to keep the peace—and we are delighted to know that they are not in conflict.
The hon. and learned Gentleman said earlier that he thought that the United States and the Soviet Union should be the only two Powers which should possess the nuclear deterrent and that it should be confined to them. Really, frankly, I do not want to see nuclear power confined to anyone. I want to see America and Russia get rid of it—and ourselves. We should not confine it to them or to ourselves—

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Or Nasser.

Sir A. V. Harvey: That might come at a later date. I have said before that I like the Americans individually very much indeed. But they are a very young nation and it was only about a year ago, when the troubles were boiling up in Laos, that the Prime Minister and this Government sorted out the problem which led the Americans towards a settlement.

Mr. Harold Davies: And messed it up.

Sir A. V. Harvey: The Americans on their own would have messed it up.
The right hon. Member for Smethwick, who opened for the Opposition, made a constructive speech, although he gathered quite a lot from the weekend Press. I imagine that there were some leaks at Transport House, but I do not know how that came about. He talked about a division at Salisbury not being as good as one on the Elbe, but the point is that our forces must be mobile. With modern transport—ships and aircraft—men can be moved quickly, and it is far better to have these men based at home so that they can be moved quickly. Anyway, they are happier at home than they are living abroad, in Germany, for example, and it is more economical. The right hon. Gentleman


said that we should cease to attempt to remain an independent Power.

Mr. Gordon Walker: Nuclear Power.

Sir A. V. Harvey: I understood him to say simply "Power". He said that not to do so would be too expensive. He said that we should discard the V-bombers each year as they wore out. I do not know how much the right hon. Gentleman knows about this, but the initial V-bombers were ordered in the days of the Labour Government, as I understand it. I do not think I am giving any secrets away in saying that the Mark II V-bombers have yet to be delivered. The right hon. Gentleman is now suggesting that we should scrap this programme before we are half-way through it. It does not make very good sense.
The right hon. Gentleman said that it was the Labour Party's policy to scrap the V-bombers in four years' time. It would be far more honest to scrap them today, if that is the party's policy. I can only think that the right hon. Gentleman is beginning to trim his sails for the next General Election whereby the party opposite may get the "coalition" more together by saying "We shall not have a nuclear deterrent in three or four years' time." That is how it sounded to me.
The right hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger) made a very worth while contribution to the debate, if I may say so. He said that there must be a diminution of our forces in Germany unless we are compensated, that is, unless we are paid for them. There have been many references to what Sir Anthony Eden, as he then was, said a few years ago about the four divisions in Germany. I have not the statement before me, but I am sure that it was based on certain conditions for compensation. Times have changed, of course. Hon. and right hon. Members on both sides have spoken today about the 1957 White Paper. It was, I imagine, the most difficult White Paper of all time to write. Inevitably, in the years which followed, changes would have to take place. The same applies to our commitments in Germany. They must be adjusted, but, of course, in agreement with our allies. As the right hon. Member for Bassetlaw reminded us, we are responsible financially for 104,000 people in Germany,

British and German. That is not a bad contribution for this island to make.
As I see it, there are two essentials for freedom: the ability to deter a warlike assault, and the ability to decide our own foreign policy and to pursue our own commercial enterprises in any part of the world. I recently had the privilege of going to Singapore and Hong Kong, in company with the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley). It is encouraging to see what British people are still doing there in trade and the orders which they send back to this country. We must encourage and not belittle the trading which is being done in the Far East.
We must have an adequate deterrent, and we should not depend too much on somebody else for it. Recently, the Leader of the Opposition was in the United States. He had a very cordial reception at the White House. I do not query what his relationship is with Mr. Kennedy, but I wonder whether he would have had quite such a cordial reception if Britain had not had the deterrent. He might have been treated as a member of the Opposition in France, going there cap in hand, and he probably would not have had the same reception. I put that consideration to the House.
The airborne deterrent, the V-bomber as we know it, is the cheapest form of deterrent there is today. It is the best in economy, speed and mobility. It has many rôles apart from carrying the nuclear weapon, photography, high explosives, and so forth. The V-bomber was ordered by the Labour Government. It is very interesting that, although in the last three or four defence debates when the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) has been here we have heard at length that we shall never see Skybolt, we heard very little about Skybolt today from the party opposite. In fact, we understand that it is on schedule and making real progress in the United States. It will add to the value of the V-bomber.
The White Paper is very reassuring. My right hon. Friend did not overstate his case. There is no point in writing a White Paper which appeals to all right hon. and hon. Members. The White Paper is reassuring also for many of the things which it does not say. We shall


look after our interests abroad where trading conditions are vital for Britain. We still have commitments in Aden, Singapore and Hong Kong. I read recently in the British Press that Mr. Dean Rusk has said in terms that only Britain can carry the commitments in those places. It is very important that she should. The Americans cannot do it there. If that is so and the Americans expect this island, which bore the brunt of two world wars long before they came in, to carry those commitments on the scale expected, we should tell the world what we are doing abroad. It is a very creditable record indeed.
My right hon. Friend said that recruiting is improving. I know that some of my hon. Friends think that eventually we shall have to have some form of selective service. Certainly, however, if the present recruiting figures continue we should achieve the numbers and probably more as well. I hope that if we get the targets aimed at my right hon. Friend will not be afraid to go over the targets for additional men. But, even so, the obligations which have to be carried out will strain our manpower to the hilt. It is only by having full mobility that we shall be able to carry out these commitments.
When I speak about mobility, I do not mean only aircraft, but ships and vessels as well—commando and assault ships, other vessels, and Transport Command. Steps have been taken to order new aircraft for Transport Command, and we have been told—but here I must criticise my right hon. Friend—what we shall have in three or four years hence. Frankly, I am not interested in what we are to get in three years' time but in what we are to get next year and the year after. Unless we can move not only our men but our equipment quickly, we shall fail in the task that lies ahead. Transport Command at the present time is admirably operated. It is every bit as good as B.O.A.C.—certainly a better timekeeper. If one is not there on time, the door is closed and the plane is off. It is very well run indeed.
What is worrying me is the question of the strategic freighter, the Belfast. Only ten have been ordered. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Aubrey Jones) was Minister of Supply when these aircraft

were ordered. He ordered them himself as Minister. At the time, he said that there were very reassuring viewpoints that the Belfast would sell commercially. I interrupted his speech then and asked why he thought that and where he got his information. I did not get much change from him then, but I am able to tell him today that not one has been sold commercially and it is unlikely that one ever will be. Good as the aircraft may be, by the time we get it the Belfast will probably be one of the most expensive aircraft Britain has ever made. Only ten of that one type will be made. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hall Green carries very great responsibility for that and many other things as Minister of Supply. Now he seeks to reverse what he was doing as a Minister two years ago, when he was spending the taxpayers' money to the tune of tens of millions of £s—a policy he is now repudiating.

Mr. Harold Davies: What about his advisers?

Sir A. V. Harvey: If my right hon. Friend did not agree with this policy he should have resigned. That was one way out.
Unless we can move heavy equipment to these various theatres, it is very little good having the men there. I am not satisfied that we can wait perhaps another three years for the Belfast. I suggested last year, and I do so again now, that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence should look at this matter again to see whether we could not hire or charter some heavy aircraft for two years. I am thinking of the Globemaster, which has been proven in service. There are many spare Globe-masters, and if we are helping our American friends in some respects, then they should help us. Globemasters could perhaps be rented on a nominal basis. Our aircraft industry would not like it, but I see no other alternative if we are to move heavy equipment.
The decision made recently on the Avro 748—and the Minister of Aviation had very good reason for making it—should have been made a year ago. This equipment is desperately required out in Malaya and elsewhere, and either it or the Herald should have been ordered at least a year ago.
Again, there is the Hawker P37 vertical take-off aircraft. Here, Britain has a three-year lead with a revolutionary aircraft. I have not seen it yet, but I have seen a movie about it by the Hawker Company. It is the most remarkable piece of engineering in recent years. Two have been ordered. Unfortunately one crashed, but luckily the pilot was saved. Four have been built and another nine are being built under the tripartite evaluation programme. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation referred to this matter at Question Time today. I asked him whether, by selling two or three of these aircraft to the United States and Germany, he would not be handing over the "know-how" of this remarkable piece of equipment. The Minister said that he could not agree. It seems to me, however, that we do not want to go it alone. If this aircraft is wanted, rather more of it should be ordered, otherwise it will be copied by the Americans or the Germans. I go one step further and suggest to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation that, with a revolutionary piece of equipment like this, he ought to order at least two squadrons to get service experience and to ascertain what it is capable of doing. Put them into the Air Force and work them hard, not less than one or two squadrons, and get operational experience.
That is not the final answer. The Hawker Group has the 1154 vertical take-off aircraft on the stocks. It is designed to fly at something like 1,400 m.p.h. We are now in N.A.T.O. competition together with France and the Americans. I should like to see the Government order this aeroplane—after all, the P.1127 was a private venture—and take a risk. If they were to get something working, we should sell great numbers to N.A.T.O. and to the other countries.
I should like to refer to the hints which have been given in the White Paper about aircraft carriers. While the Government are thinking about this matter, which is what the scientists will do for the next two years, not much money will be spent. I hope, however, that they are not considering building aircraft carriers on the lines of the latest American carriers. I hope that what we will

have will be a carrier to deal with vertical take-off aircraft, with a relatively small deck and the necessary supplies, equipment, machinery, and so on, to enable it to operate.
The autogyro of 30 years ago is the helicopter today. Generally speaking, it has been slow and disappointing progress. Within ten years, however, the vertical take-off machine, which only four or five years ago was flying at Nottingham with Rolls-Royce as a "bedstead", may well be a large passenger aircraft. I strongly urge the Government, if they can find a few million to spare, to put it into research and development on vertical take-off. That is the sort of thing that Briain must do to earn its keep in the armaments field.
It must be realised that the Navy and the Royal Air Force have a joint operational rôle to support the Army. I agree with the hon. and learned Member for Northampton when he referred to integration. The Navy and the Royal Air Force should have common types of aircraft. The days are long gone when the operational requirements for the Navy could be different from those of the Air Force. There is no reason why they should not combine or even why the pilots should not interchange. In the old days, a Royal Air Force pilot was not acceptable on a carrier because, it was said, he could not pick out a cruiser or a destroyer. Today, flying at the speed that modern aircraft do, frequently over land, that argument does not apply. There could be much more integration between the two Services.
Could we not go even further? Somehow, it seems that the Chiefs of Staff resist integration. Why not make a start by merging the medical officers and the parsons of the two Services and putting them into the same type of uniform—and the cooks? Gradually, we could bring about integration of the two Services in a common form to start with.
Much has been said today about our overseas bases. For nationalist reasons, we have been ousted from a number of bases, for which we cannot directly blame the Communists. Our existing bases need to be consolidated. El Adem, in North Africa, is an extremely useful base, and vigorous efforts are being made to make it agreeable to the people who


live there. Tremendous improvements have been made at Aden. It is remarkable what has been done in the last two years for the other ranks. I had not been to Aden since 1935. Today, it is quite another place. There is air conditioning for all ranks' quarters, whereas the officers' mess was built eighty years ago for the Indian Army with no air conditioning. That is quite a differential.
Perhaps the best investment of all was that at Gan, which is a small atoll 800 miles south of Ceylon six feet above sea level and three miles long. It is the most remarkable air base one has yet seen. It cost between £3 million and £4 million and is manned by 400 to 500 men. The whole place is very efficiently run and the extraordinary thing is that all the officers and men there are extremely contented with the job away from the night clubs and the bars of Singapore. There is one lady on the island, a W.V.S. lady, and they are all very happy. Then there is the base at Singapore. If the greater Malaysia plan goes through, and the people out there are optimistic, it will be a great thing for South-East Asia.
The morale of all ranks in South-East Asia could not be higher. A great deal needs to be done there. There should be an order of priorities to ensure that equipment is given a much higher priority than it is given at present. The emphasis has been on N.A.T.O. and Europe, but we cannot expect the human frame to carry the burden too long. The men out there have managed and will manage. They work hard in difficult conditions, but they must be given new equipment and given it fairly quickly.
Various things have been said in the course of the debate about outer space and I am sure that the House, as it has done already, would extend its congratulations to Colonel Glenn, a very brave and modest officer of the United States. We have all welcomed the Soviet and United States agreement to explore the possibilities of co-operation in space. When one thinks what the exploitation of space entails, V-bombers and the like are toys compared with what may happen in space before long. In all forms of research and "know-how" Britain in the last 200 years or so has been somewhere in the lead. What are we doing now in space research? How

much danger is there that we may be left out altogether?
Here I am not thinking only in terms of war machines. If we are left behind it will be very difficult to catch up. Young scientists and other workers in the aircraft and allied industries are looking for opportunities to employ their energies and talents in this direction. If they cannot find opportunities in Britain they will go to North America and use their talents there. We cannot attempt anything like what the Americans are now doing, but we have a way in this country sometimes of doing things for rather modest sums even better than other countries when we apply our technology and skill to them. I believe that something could be done in this direction. The Minister of Aviation has done a great deal with Bluestreak in conjunction with European countries. This could be a start and we could have satellites for communication and navigation in co-operation with France and other European countries as well as with the United States.
I am told that the United States spends on space research about £1,700 million a year, which is exactly what we spend on the whole of the British defence programme. I am told that American skill and use of manpower is strained to the absolute limit to do what the Americans are doing today. If this country could come to some arrangement with the Americans in this connection, I am sure that it would be welcomed on the other side of the Atlantic.
One cannot separate research programmes on aircraft from research on ballistic weapons. The two go hand-in-hand. One thinks, for example, of the X15 aircraft taken up by the B52 to 40,000 feet and then released to fly at over 4,000 miles an hour. This is a type of research in which Britain should be taking some part, because it may have important implications. If, after getting the maximum out of a rocket, one can add the human element its versatility is increased. If a human being is in either a rocket or an aeroplane its versatility is very much greater. We can offer the Americans brains and technology, and the country which eventually wins the race will dominate the world.
Before I conclude I should like to say a word about pensions. There is a


Motion on this subject on the Order Paper, signed by forty or fifty hon. Members. It is clear that we are not asking for increases in pensions to retired officers and other ranks at the present time. They must take their turn in the queue with others of the nation until we have straightened out our economy, but there is a strong case for the widows.
Before referring to this, I should like to mention that I have heard it suggested that the Treasury, which is always looking for something new, is considering cutting out the commutation of pensions. It has been very attractive to retired officers on leaving the Service, who wish either to buy a house or a small business, to have half or two-thirds of their pension in a lump sum. I hope that this will not be discontinued.
Widows with children who lost their fathers before 4th November, 1958, have their pensions reduced when the children reach the age of 16. I have a list of the names and addresses of about thirty widows who are drawing National Assistance. Some of them are 90 years old; others are 84. One is the widow of a major, drawing a Service pension of £161 a year, and National Assistance of £1 15s. a week. Another is the widow of a commander in the Royal Navy, drawing a Service pension of £127 a year, and National Assistance of £2 1s. 6d. a week. I am told that to put this question right would cost the Government over £300,000 per annum. This is a quarter of the cost of one V-bomber, and I ask my right hon. Friend to give this matter his attention. It is a small item, but an important one.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend. In spite of what has been said by hon. Gentlemen opposite, in my travels I have noticed that the equipment of the Services has improved out of all recognition. I could not have been more impressed by the morale of officers and other ranks, and their morale would not be good if the equipment was not good. We have something to show, provided we get our priorities right and stick to our guns. Possession of the deterrent is the one thing that enables us to bargain with the Russians and the Americans, and I beg the Government to stick to their policy and see it through.

9.58 p.m.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: I want to deal with a paragraph in the White Paper which has been referred to by only one hon. Member, the hon. Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. W. Baxter). It seems odd indeed that there should be a lengthy paragraph on civil defence in the White Paper and yet neither the Minister nor my right hon. Friend the Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker) said a word about it. I am addressing the Minister of Defence and I should be glad of his attention.
If this defence expenditure is for the purpose of defending the civil population, why was nothing said about civil defence in the Minister's speech today, and why has no Minister with responsibility for civil defence been on the Government Front Bench throughout our debate? The justification for spending this immense sum of money is to defend the people of Great Britain, but what do we find? There are discussions and divergencies on points of high strategy, ranging from the stratosphere to the curious concept of the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget), and about the task of—

It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

Debate to be resumed Tomorrow.

RAILWAY WORKSHOPS, EASTLEIGH (REDUNDANCY)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. M. Noble.]

10.0 p.m.

Dr. Horace King: Tonight I wish to raise the subject of redundancy in the Eastleigh railway works. I begin by telling the House that Eastleigh is a little Hampshire town of about 35,000 people. Half of it is new and dormitory, and the older half is the railway town. Nearly half the adult workers of Eastleigh are employed by the British Transport Commission in making new carriages for the railways and in repairing locomotives. Ten years ago the Commission employed about 60 per cent. of the workers of Eastleigh, and at present it employs nearly 48 per cent. of the adult population there.
About 850 Eastleigh workers are to be made redundant by decree of the Commission, and most will be redundant by the end of the year. This means an economic disaster to Eastleigh the like of which has never happened before. I know the men that I am speaking about. The carriage works has a proud record of service to the Southern Railway and to Britain in peace and war. It has turned out thousands of railway coaches and has pioneered new projects, including the diesel-eleetric locomotive and the fibre-glass coach. Their combined skill is part of the precious wealth of Britain, and I believe that it will be a crime if half this skilled labour is frittered away this year.
The railwaymen for whom I speak have given much to the civic life of Eastleigh—many councillors and mayors, and at present an outstanding member of the County Education Committee. There is no aspect of the little town's many-sided life in which the railwaymen are not playing a vital part.
The older men concerned have literally given nearly the whole of their lives to the town and the railways. They went to the railway works as boys. The younger men have made the railways their career, on the understanding—up to now supported by British Railways—that it was a lifetime career, and that the future of the workshops was firm and secure. The county council, of which I am a member, has just built a new county technical college in Eastleigh, in the heart of what Hampshire believed was to be an industrial town, with a permanent future.
Some of the older railwaymen live in fine council houses, provided by a council which has a record of civic progress unbeaten in the South and dating back over forty years. That record is due largely to the public service of some of these railway workers. Many of the younger workers for whom I am pleading are buying their homes on mortgages, and the loss of their jobs would be a disaster. Now, at one fell swoop, the heart is being knocked out of this little town and its workshops, which have been established there for seventy years.
I am not going to talk about broad railway economics; I want to talk tonight about men with whom I have worked throughout my forty years of

public life—men with wives and children, many of whom, after thirty years' service, face an economic blitz just as Eastleigh faced, with distinction, a blitz during the war years.
I believe that every employer ought to be a good employer, and that an employer in a nationalised industry ought to be the best employer. In a recent debate I attacked the old inhuman conception of men being something to be hired and fired. We cannot run modern Britain on that basis. Tonight, therefore, I make a number of pleas to the Parliamentary Secretary for the men involved, and for the town which depends on them—because if half the workers in the Eastleigh railway works go, commerce and all the ancillaries and, indeed, the whole social life of Eastleigh, is in danger. Therefore, I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to persuade the British Transport Commission to reconsider its decision.
This is a good factory. Recently much money has been spent in it on costly new equipment, and of the carriage workers made redundant throughout the country about 1,600—about half of them—are Eastleigh men. But I wish to ask the Minister why we should single out one community for an unbearable portion of the cut, even if the cut is necessary. Moreover, most of the redundancy has to take place by 31st December this year, and I ask: why the suddenness? If it must occur, I urge that it be spread over sufficient time to enable these skilled men to seek other ways of using their skill.
The men about whom I am speaking made the prototype of the new carriage in fibre glass, and I urge that they be allowed to make some of the carriages which their skill has developed. I urge that the locomotive parts of the works should get some share of the manufacture of the diesel electric engines which they pioneered. The Government boast that they are decentralising the railways, but they are centralising carriage work. These men have served the Southern Region well, and I ask why the Southern Region should not continue its own regional coach building.
One bad feature of the whole business is its soullessness. I do not blame local management; I blame top management. I appreciate the heavy responsibilities


of Dr. Beeching, but I urge him, through the Minister, to realise that he is dealing not with statistics but with living men. I believe that Dr. Beeching should have gone to Eastleigh when the first decision was made. I urge him even now to go and talk to the men. I urge him to hear, as the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mr. D. Price) and I yesterday morning heard from about 800 men affected by the cut, what this cut means to them and their practical suggestions for alleviating it. Incidentally, I wish tonight to pay tribute to the very fine leadership of the works committee of the Eastleigh railway works and its secretary, Mr. Field. He is a young man, who, like many of his mates, has much to give to British Railways.
First, I urge reconsideration of the basic policy. Then I ask, or rather we ask—because I am supported in this appeal by my colleague, the hon. Member for Eastleigh, who has been fighting the battle of these men with every ounce of energy and ability he possesses—that the Government should make speedy provision for alternative kinds of skilled work for the men who are to be displaced. I hope that if the hon. Member for Eastleigh manages to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, he will develop this further.
I speak for the men of the works, for all parties represented on the borough council and for the county council of which I am a member, when I ask the Government to treat as a matter of urgency the provision of work for skilled men on the 30-acre site generously released by British Railways, and on the 4-acre site available in Eastleigh for which the local council seeks planning permission to establish a precision industry which could employ at least some of the skilled men. Above all, I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to say to the British Transport Commission, "Do have some confidence in the men who have served you well. Take them into your confidence when you make decisions of this grave nature affecting their livelihood. Do not scrap their life work."
I say of the men for whom we are pleading tonight that the railways and the railway factories are their industry as much as that of management and of the former shareholders, or now of

Britain. It is a truism that without the skilled work of the men in the factories the British railway industry would not exist. It is not right that these men should bear the full cost of solving Britain's attempt to find a place for railways in the age of the motor car and the aeroplane.
These men face unemployment in Southern Hampshire where the aircraft industry has shrunk, where shipping and ship-repairing are shrinking, and where a post-war swollen population—which in Hampshire has increased more than in any county other than, perhaps, Hertfordshire—may yet find enormous difficulty in providing work for an equally swollen juvenile population. If these cuts take place in their present form and at their present speed, whatever the general picture in Hampshire, certainly Eastleigh might well become a depressed area.
Those of us who speak in this debate want to save Eastleigh. Tonight is indeed a cry from Macedonia: "Come over and help us". I hope that the Government will respond to the debate which we have inaugurated tonight in the spirit in which we make this appeal, a human appeal for human beings who have served British Railways well. I am grateful to my hon. Friends the Member for St. Helens (Mr. Spriggs) and the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West (Mr. Popplewell) for raising this question briefly in Committee on the Transport Bill last week. My hon. Friend in this matter, the hon. Member for Eastleigh, will support this plea to the Government to treat this matter as one of great humanity and great urgency for the people of Eastleigh.

10.12 p.m.

Mr. David Price: I wish to congratulate the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King) on his good fortune in securing this debate tonight. As usual I was unsuccessful in the Ballot, and I thank him for his generosity in sharing the time with me.
Since the announcement by British Railways that they would construct no new coaches at Eastleigh on completion of the current programme, the hon. Member and I have been working in double harness with the common aim of avoiding, if we can, and mitigating, if


we are unsuccessful, the resulting hardship to our constituents. Only yesterday we shared a platform at a meeting organised by the works committee in Eastleigh Town Hall.
In the short time available, I wish to try to cover additional points to those made by the hon. Member. I want, first, to reinforce his main argument, why Eastleigh? Even if we accept that British Railways have a case for reducing coach-making facilities for the railway system, why pick on Eastleigh? It is certainly not because the works there are inefficient, at least not by the standard of railway workshops. If this decision goes through, as the hon. Member has pointed out, there will be no new coaching facilities anywhere on the Southern Region system. As the Parliamentary Secretary knows, the Southern Region has coaching needs peculiar to itself not shared with the other regions.
I wish briefly to make five general points additional to and in extension of the points made by the hon. Member. I should very much like to have a reply from the Parliamentary Secretary on those five points. First, as to the extent of the redundancies. British Railways spoke originally of about 850 payroll staff being eventually redundant as a result of this decision. The figures I have received suggest that as at 10th February, 1962, 474 men then employed would be redundant by the end of the current year. Am I to understand that that is merely the first stage and that in 1963 there will be additional redundancies, or is this to be the limit to redundancy? My hon. Friend will appreciate the importance of an answer being given to that question.
Secondly, I raise the question of more repair work. Is there any likelihood of more repair work coming permanently to Eastleigh carriage works? I have heard rumours to this effect, and I should like them confirmed or denied, because, if they are true, that would reduce the numbers likely to be made redundant and it would be of great importance to my constituents in their current anxieties.
My third point has been made by the hon. Member for Itchen, and it concerns phasing back. In view of the heavy concentration of redundancies in

the months of November and December, would it not be possible to phase back these redundancies so that there is a better chance of the men concerned finding alternative work? On present showing, Christmas, 1962, will not be a very cheerful season for the people of Eastleigh.
The fourth point concerns the diversification of industry. If British Railways adhere to their decision, our main hope must lie in getting new industry into the borough of Eastleigh. For many years the Eastleigh Borough Council has wanted to reduce the borough's dependence upon British Railways by diversifying its industrial base. We have always been turned down on the argument that there was full employment in the Southampton area, but it has always been added that should the railways contract their activities, action would be taken in time. I quote from the official minutes of a meeting held in Reading on 1st May, 1952—a minute taken by the Government Department and not by the borough council:
Mr. Young (Regional Controller, Board of Trade) denied that it was the Board of Trade's intention to sit back and await the arrival of unemployment at Eastleigh. … He felt sure that if there were any long-term proposals to reduce employment at the Railway Workshops at Eastleigh, either through technological or other reasons, the Department concerned with the location of industry would be adequately warned beforehand.
The redundancies are now upon us. The Departments concerned with the location of industry do not appear to have been adequately warned beforehand.
Nonetheless, we have been encouraged in our hopes for new industry by the decision of British Railways to release thirty acres of land near the carriage works in Chickenhall Lane for industrial development. May I have my hon. Friend's assurance that British Railways will press ahead with the development of this land? Will he also assure us that all other Government Departments—because, as far as I can see, this covers a whole gamut of Departments—will cooperate enthusiastically in bringing suitable new industries to this site? I emphasise the words "suitable new industry". We neither expect nor want just any form of industrial development. I do not expect my hon. Friend's Department to give a blanket permission


for anyone to go there, because if we had a factory to make dolls' eyes it would not help our problem.
I want an assurance from my hon. Friend that he and his colleagues on the Treasury Bench will assist in bringing the appropriate industries there, because we want industries suitable to the rather particular skills which will become available from the carriage works. Ideally a man should get his cards from the carriage works on a Friday and take up his new job in one of the new factories on the following Monday morning. Will my hon. Friend undertake to do everything within the power of Government to make this ideal come true?
My final point concerns the chances of finding alternative work. May I point out that the chances of finding alternative work are not as good as appear from general figures for the Southampton area? First, the Southampton area is large—substantially wider than reasonable travelling distance to work from Eastleigh. Secondly, general figures do not indicate the job opportunities for the particular skills likely to be redundant. Thirdly, this decision in conjunction with previous decisions taken by British Railways and by the planning authorities, has reduced substantially the job opportunities for Eastleigh people. Fourthly, Eastleigh is not a part of Southampton—with respect to the hon. Member for Itchen. It is a borough in its own right, with life and character of its own. It has grown around the railway. If railway activities are to be reduced, it must have new industry to compensate, otherwise we shall become a town of commuters and unemployed.

10.19 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. John Hay): The unanimity of view on this subject which has been expressed from both sides of the House is a warning to me to look out. I must be very careful what I say, because either I shall be attacked, as one might expect, from the other side of the House or I shall be attacked from the benches behind me.
I must begin by saying where my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport

stands in this matter, because this is essential to any understanding of the situation. Decisions made by the British Transport Commission for the procurement of equipment for its railways or indeed for any of its activities are matters of management solely for the Commission. Similarly, decisions that the Commission makes about the employment of its workshops and what use it makes of particular workshops are for the Commission alone. My right hon. Friend the Minister has no direct responsibility here. But he has a general interest in the problem of surplus capacity which exists throughout the rollingstock industry.
As the House probably knows, this surplus capacity is largely there because of historical reasons. We have taken the view that, since this capacity must be reduced, we must resist any attempt to place the full burden of the reduction of capacity upon either the railway industry alone or upon the private repairers and manufacturers alone. We must see what we can do to keep things even.
It is clear that as the modernisation programme for rollingstock nears completion some surplus capacity will have to be cut out. Our colleagues on the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries went into this matter with some care in their recent Report on British Railways. I should like to quote briefly what they said in paragraph 262 of their Report:
In the circumstances of the industry today, some adjustment of the workshop facilities is inevitable. The Commission are right to go ahead with this now, for otherwise the contraction in size of the industry will coincide with the end of modernisation orders (now at their height); the dual effect of this on the workshops' labour force could be very considerable indeed, if allowance were not made for it in advance.
This paragraph comes at the end of a long and interesting passage on the railway workshops in the Report. I think one can fairly summarise what our colleagues thought by saying that they broadly approved the process of rationalisation of the railway workshops which the Commission is now carrying out.
I come to the present proposals relating to Eastleigh. Following meetings with the staff, the Commission announced


on 19th January last that on the completion of the current orders, construction of coaching stock would cease at Swindon and Eastleigh and construction of locomotives at Horwich. Therefore, the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King) was not correct when he said that Eastleigh had been singled out. Three main manufacturing places were concerned in the announcement.
The Commission estimated then that the resulting redundancies at Eastleigh would be not likely to exceed 850 and they would be spread over the period between mid-1962 and mid-1963. In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Mr. D. Price), I have no further information as to the numbers than is contained in the Commission's original announcement. It was, however, clear that the rundown in employment would be spread over this period of twelve months. Some of these men may well be re-employed on other work at the Eastleigh shops.
My hon. Friend mentioned repair work which might come to Eastleight. I understand that, as part of its general proposals for Eastleigh, decisions were taken by the Commission with regard to repair work at present done at Lancing. The decisions were taken in the light of the knowledge that some repair work would be going to Eastleigh instead of to Lancing.
Some of the men affected may be reemployed elsewhere on British Railways. This has frequently happened when similar proposals have been made. We know that some of these men have already left and have found alternative employment in other industries in the area. About 140 have already done this in the last month or so.
In the light of this situation I honestly think that it was some exaggeration on the part of the hon. Member for Itchen to talk in terms of "economic disaster" and "a crime". I do not think that the facts bear such an interpretation.
The fact is that the Southampton industrial complex is within a very few miles, and my information is that specialised tradesmen—and, in particular, tradesmen like these—should be able without too much difficulty to find alternative employment outside the railway industry if, in fact, they cannot be

re-employed inside it. My hon. Friend said that Eastleigh wanted to remain as a manufacturing borough on its own, without being considered in relation to Southampton. Of course, if men can find alternative employment within a few miles of their homes, that is nothing new. Many people come to London to work, commuting a great many more miles than there are between Eastleigh and Southampton.
In any event, I am advised that the Ministry of Labour is prepared to watch the whole situation extremely carefully, and will make all necessary efforts to fit any such cases as there may be into suitable vacancies. There are already a number of vacancies for men in trades similar to those to be found in the railway workshops in the Southampton area at present, and I believe that the number will grow as time goes on.
Both hon. Members asked that the rundown be phased over a period longer than twelve months to enable new industries to come to the district. I hope that they will appreciate that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport has no power to require that to be done. He cannot order the Commission to phase the operation over a longer period. I must not refer to legislation, but legislation is at present going through the House which would give my hon. Friend something like that power, but he does not have it now.
The problem of excess capacity is not something from which we can run away. The problem is there, and the burden has to fall somewhere. If work does not stop at Eastleigh it will, of course, have to stop somewhere else. Where-ever the cuts are made, someone is bound to be affected. The Commission has selected the shops to be closed only after reviewing the whole of its needs and capacity. My hon. Friend asked, "Why pick on Eastleigh?" Obviously, the Commission has decided that it is much more advantageous to concentrate, if cuts are to be made, on a limited number of centres rather than to dissipate its effort over a very wide field.
Both hon. Gentlemen suggested that the Government should assist in providing alternative employment. As I have said, there are already a number of unfilled vacancies in the Southampton area,


and I understand that a larger number will be present themselves as a result of new development, new building and industries coming to the Southampton area in the next few years. The Board of Trade estimates that there should be over a thousand new jobs coming there within a very short time. There are undoubtedly considerable natural and industrial advantages for development at Eastleigh. For many firms going to that area there is, at the moment, a shortage of labour; that is a problem for them, but, at least, if there is a shortage of labour, it presents opportunities for many of the men who may be displaced from Eastleigh.
My hon. Friend asked whether the Commission would release some of the land it has near the carriage works for industrial development, and he asked whether Government Departments would co-operate to bring new industry to the site. The House knows that the development of land is a subject on which the local authority will first have to give planning consent and, if the land is to be developed for industrial purposes, the Board of Trade's permission is also required. I can only suggest that my

hon. Friend pursue that issue with the Board of Trade.
I have investigated this matter with some care, and I have no doubt that the Commission has, in this case, acted as a good employer—to use the words of the hon. Member for Itchen. It has given the maximum possible notice, it has kept in the closest possible contact with the staff, through the established consultative machinery, and with the local authorities. It has kept the Ministry of Labour and the Board of Trade fully informed, and it has tried to lessen the effect of redundancy by controlling recruitment and allowing the numbers to fall by natural wastage. It has also tried to fit redundant staff into other jobs.
I do not think that the Commission has anything to be ashamed of in what it is doing to deal with the problem at Eastleigh. It will certainly keep the matter under review, and I sincerely hope and believe that, in practice, the problem will not prove to be so severe as both hon. Members have suggested tonight.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Ten o'clock.